Across Africa, tech companies position their products as the pathway to economic growth, inclusion, and opportunity. But Big Tech’s expansion is already deepening inequalities, enabling surveillance, and extracting value from communities that bear the greatest costs. Luminate supports a diverse ecosystem of African organisations working at the intersection of tech and social justice, strengthening civic space, advancing digital rights, and ensuring African voices shape the future of tech governance.
Digital inclusion is often presented as a route to economic participation, while technological sovereignty is framed as the answer to dependence on foreign tech companies. Yet inclusion without accountability gives governments and Big Tech free reign to exploit entire populations, and sovereignty can empower governments and private actors to deploy technologies for surveillance and control.
This live conversation brings together Mercy Mutemi, Chioma Agwuegbo, Kavisha Pillay, and Kenneth Matlawe - expert practitioners working across technology and social justice - to question these dominant narratives, explore their limitations, and imagine alternatives that put people, communities, and their rights at the centre of Africa’s technological future.
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Chenai Chair
Chenai Chair leads the Masakhane African Languages Hub. She founded My Data Rights (Africa) and has led initiatives at Mozilla Foundation (Africa Innovation Mradi, Common Voice:African Languages), the World Wide Web Foundation’s Gender and Digital Rights flagship, and Research ICT Africa’s youth and gender research. She brings feminist perspectives to datagovernance and AI ethics.
Chioma Agwuegbo
Chioma Agwuegbo is a feminist advocate working at the intersection of women’s rights, media, and technology. She is Executive Director of TechHer, where she leads programmes helping women and girls access and use technology safely and meaningfully. She holds a master’s degree in Social Media, is pursuing a PhD in Development Communication, and is a Ford Global Fellow and Transform Norms Fellow.
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‘Gbenga Sesan
‘Gbenga is Executive Director of Paradigm Initiative (PIN), a nonprofit connecting underserved young Africans with digital opportunities and advocating for their online rights.
Since 2007, the organization has worked across Nigerian communities and, since 2017, throughout Africa, advancing digital inclusion, digital rights, and ICT for development.
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Kavisha Pillay
Kavisha Pillay is a social justice activist and founding director of the Campaign on Digital Ethics (CODE), a South African nonprofit advancing public accountability in the digital era. Her work focuses on technology, democracy, and human rights. Through CODE, she leads research and advocacy on platform governance, data protection, algorithmic justice, and Big Tech accountability.
Kenneth Matlawe
Kenneth Matlawe is a Cape Town-based activist and organizer in South Africa's housing justice movement. For over a decade, he has worked with the Housing Assembly as Political Education Organiser, coordinating strategy, operations, and grassroots campaigns advocating for safe, affordable, and dignified housing. He is also a 2023 Atlantic Fellow for Health Equity in South Africa.
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Mercy Mutemi
Mercy Mutemi is Executive Director of The Oversight Lab, which challenges the exploitation of African minerals, data, and labor by global tech companies. Though African communities help build digital platforms, they often bear a disproportionate share of the harms. Through litigation and advocacy, she works to defend their rights and build a more equitable digital future grounded in human rights.
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Ojoma Ochai
Ojoma Ochai Bio Ojoma Ochai is the managing director of CcHUB, Africa’s leading creative and innovation ecosystem enabler, which supports and invests in tech and creative entrepreneurs and innovators to promote African prosperity. She is also a co-founder of CcHUB’s Creative Economy Practice.
