First African Digital Humanism Summer School 2025

TL;DR

This paper presents insights from the First African Digital Humanism Summer School 2025, focusing on AI's cultural, linguistic, and social challenges in Africa, emphasizing human-centered approaches in AI development.

Contribution

It introduces six case studies from the summer school that explore AI's ability to navigate cross-cultural and multilingual contexts in Africa.

Findings

AI's capacity to understand diverse cultural contexts

Importance of human-centered AI approaches

Case studies demonstrate practical applications in Africa

Abstract

Artificial intelligence (AI) has become a transformative force across global societies, reshaping the ways we communicate, collaborate, and make decisions. Yet, as AI systems increasingly mediate interactions between humans, questions about the ability to take into account and understand culture, language, and context have taken center stage. This book explores these questions through a series of articles that try to assess AI's capacity to navigate cross-cultural, multilingual, and high-stakes policy environments, emphasizing human-centered approaches that balance technological innovation with social equity. It brings together six case studies from the First African Digital Humanism Summer School that took place in Kigali, Rwanda in July 2025.