Many tech initiatives in Africa focus on short-term gains or importing solutions from abroad. Lacina Kon?, CEO of Smart Africa, is taking a different approach. With a ?100 million plan to create a single digital market across the continent, he is uniting more than 40 countries under a bold vision: to turn Africa into a hub of homegrown digital innovation, where startups can scale, talent stays, and data is owned locally.

When seven African heads of state gathered in 2013, Kagame of Rwanda, Museveni of Uganda, Kenyatta of Kenya, Ali Bongo of Gabon, Salva Kiir of South Sudan, Ibrahim Boubacar Ke?ta of Mali, and Blaise Compaor? of Burkina Faso, they were united by a stark realisation: Africa risked being left behind in the next industrial revolution.

Their solution was ambitious yet clear ? Smart Africa, an alliance designed to accelerate digital transformation and create a single digital market for the continent.

Today, the initiative is steered by Lacina Kon?, appointed CEO in 2019, whose leadership has expanded the alliance from seven countries to over 40, with programs spanning policy harmonisation, digital infrastructure, and innovation funding.

Funding the next Silicon Valleys

Funding is the heartbeat of any tech ecosystem, and Africa is no exception. The continent has raised billions to support its startups, numbers that sound impressive to the ear, yet remain small compared to the global tides of capital that shape Silicon Valley and Shenzhen.

So far this year, startups across the continent have raised $2.8 billion (January to August), matching the total raised in 2024, according to Briter Intelligence. But for Lacina Kon?, funding figures are both inspiring and sobering.

While it is proof that African innovation is vibrant, it is also a reminder that the continent must create the right conditions for venture capital, risk-taking, and long-term investment if its tech ecosystem is to scale.

To address this, the Smart Africa Fund was launched as a flagship program of the alliance, initially supported with ?100 million and managed by Bamboo Capital Partners.

The governments of C?te d'Ivoire and Luxembourg acted as anchor sponsors, each contributing ?10 million to the fund?s first-loss tranche, providing confidence to other investors and helping the fund move toward its target.

The fund focuses on investing in businesses that leverage scalable, sustainable, technology-led solutions, particularly those that create growth opportunities for underserved communities across Africa.

?We?re re-evaluating the structure, whether it should remain a standalone Smart Africa Fund or operate through accelerators and existing African investment vehicles,? Kon? said.

He hopes the commitments from initial investors will inspire other countries to join and help reach the full ?100 million goal.

Together with complementary initiatives like the Smart Africa Startup Act, these efforts form the backbone of Smart Africa?s plan to establish a single digital market by 2030.

Harmonising policies and overcoming barriers

Building a single digital market for Africa sounds exciting, but it?s anything but simple. The continent?s borders aren?t just physical; they?re digital too.

Every country has its own rules, policies, and regulatory quirks that make scaling a startup across Africa eventful.

It?s a familiar story. The African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) was meant to bring countries closer through trade, yet intra-African trade still hovers around 17?18%, a far cry from the European Union?s 70%. The digital world faces the same challenge: fragmented laws that slow down progress.

Kon? believes the answer lies in harmonisation. ?We believe digital transformation can accelerate integration if we align our policies across borders,? he says.

That belief has become one of Smart Africa?s biggest missions, helping countries synchronise their digital policies so that innovation doesn?t stop at the border.

The alliance is working on cross-border data governance frameworks, shared digital IDs, and common regulatory standards to make collaboration smoother and safer.

Data sovereignty and African ownership

Across the continent, countries are still cautious about sharing data and digital infrastructure. The fear isn?t unfounded.

As global tech giants deepen their footprint in Africa, questions about ownership and control are becoming louder. Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, IBM, Oracle, and Cisco are all investing heavily, from cloud infrastructure to AI training programs and talent development hubs.

Google alone has surpassed its $1 billion pledge, expanding internet access to 100 million people across the continent. Meanwhile, Cassava Technologies is partnering with Nvidia on Africa?s first AI factory, a project valued at $720 million that could redefine how the continent builds and trains its digital capacity.

Still, Kon? worries about what lies beneath all that excitement, the question of who truly owns Africa?s digital future.

He calls it ?data as Africa?s infinite cocoa.? "C?te d?Ivoire and Ghana export cocoa for processing abroad and import it back as chocolate, just as African user data is collected, processed overseas, and sold back in services. But data, unlike cocoa, is infinite. Africa hosts just 1% of the world?s 8,000 data centres, roughly 80 in total, equal to Switzerland," he said.

Kon? warns that this leaves the continent vulnerable, with even government data often hosted abroad. Smart Africa advocates for sovereign data infrastructure, including government clouds, to ensure national control and digital resilience.

Co-creation over consumption

Kon? stresses that the future of Africa?s tech story cannot be one of endless consumption. ?The world has Amazon, Alibaba, Google, TikTok, but where is Africa?s platform?? he asks.

Smart Africa prioritises partnerships that empower local talent and build homegrown innovation, focusing on structured, long-term collaboration rather than short-term, transactional engagements.

Programs like the Smart Africa Digital Academy and partnerships with AWS and Intel demonstrate this co-creation approach, training developers, upskilling policymakers, and strengthening local innovation ecosystems. These initiatives keep talent on the continent, rather than feeding foreign markets.

The numbers reveal both promise and paradox. Africa?s young population is its greatest strength, restless, curious, digital-first. Yet many of its brightest developers migrate or end up building for markets far from home. Smart Africa seeks to retain talent and nurture platforms that reflect local needs and contexts.

The proof that this is possible already exists. Mobile money, a uniquely African innovation, turned a simple phone into a financial tool, leapfrogging legacy banking systems.

In 2022 alone, transactions topped $8.2 billion, a quiet but powerful reminder that Africa has never needed to follow the world?s playbook to innovate.

Achievements and vision

When Smart Africa began, the idea of a Single Digital Market sounded like a dream, ambitious, noble, and perhaps too large for the continent?s fragmented systems. But a decade later, that dream has started to take form.

Across member states, the alliance has ignited a quiet digital revolution, from smart city pilots in Kigali and Accra to AI and e-governance programs in Tunisia and C?te d?Ivoire.

Frameworks like the Digital Governance Toolkit are now guiding national strategies, while the One Africa Network has turned what was once a slogan into a lived reality, free roaming across more than twenty nations.

Also, the Smart Africa Startup Act, which provides policy frameworks, tax incentives, and regulatory support to strengthen innovation ecosystems, has been adopted in over 30 countries.

Under Lacina Kon?, Smart Africa?s vision has sharpened. By 2030, the continent aims to be digitally unified, where startups scale with ease, data is governed by Africans for Africans, and innovation is not imported but born at home.

Looking Ahead: Transform Africa Summit 2025

The work doesn?t pause at vision. It demands conversation, collaboration, and commitment, the kind that brings governments, investors, and innovators into one room to imagine a shared future. That?s the spirit behind the Smart Africa Summit, set for November 12?14, 2025, in Conakry, Guinea.

Its theme, ?AI for Africa: Innovate Locally, Impact Globally,? captures the alliance?s ambition to place African innovation on the global stage, not as an afterthought, but as an equal voice in shaping the world?s digital agenda.

For Lacina Kon?, this summit carries symbolic weight. It?s the first to be held in West Africa, and notably in a Francophone country, a deliberate choice that reflects Smart Africa?s philosophy of inclusion and shared ownership.

Over three days, the summit will bring together heads of state, policymakers, investors, and entrepreneurs, a convergence designed to align policy through the Council of African Regulators, mobilise capital via the Investment Forum, and showcase local innovation across fields such as AI, fintech, and agritech.

But beneath the speeches and panels lies a deeper question: what does technology mean for those on the margins, the unconnected, the unbanked, the unseen?

Kon? insists that Africa?s AI must be inclusive, built for real people in real contexts, from farmers using voice-assisted tools to small traders navigating digital markets. Technology, he says, should level the playing field, not widen it. (Business Insider Africa)

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