The Pathways to Opportunities Summit, an initiative of CMU-Africa’s Center for Inclusive Digital Transformation of Africa (CIDTA) supported by the Mastercard Foundation, is designed to address Africa’s youth employment challenge by rethinking how opportunity is created, accessed, and sustained in a rapidly changing world. The summit brings together students, startups, faculty, industry leaders, investors, and policymakers to examine how skills, innovation, and entrepreneurship translate into real pathways to employment, venture creation, and impact. It positions entrepreneurship not only as a means of starting businesses, but as a career pathway and job-creation strategy particularly in contexts shaped by digitalization, emerging technologies, and shifting labour markets.
Rather than treating employment, entrepreneurship, and innovation as separate outcomes, the summit emphasizes the importance of multi-pathway thinking, enabling young people to design and navigate flexible career trajectories over time. Through dialogue, applied sessions, and collaborative problem-solving, participants explore how opportunity increasingly emerges at the intersection of skills, technology, collaboration, and real-world challenges. Initiated in 2022, the summit has evolved from a symposium into a platform for experimentation and learning. Previous editions have engaged over 150 students from 25 universities across Africa and the United States, resulting in the development of 15 tech-enabled solutions addressing challenges in healthcare, education, and climate resilience. Lessons from these early editions have informed the current design, which places greater emphasis on applied innovation, cross-sector collaboration, and translating learning into opportunity.
Building on this momentum, the 2026 summit brought together over 150 participants, including students, startup founders, faculty, industry experts, investors, and policymakers drawn from Afretec and selected non-Afretec institutions across Africa. Participants engaged in collaborative dialogue and applied innovation activities focused on priority challenge areas, including climate change, education, health and pandemic preparedness, migration, and refugees, with the aim of translating skills, ideas, and partnerships into practical pathways to opportunity.
Objectives of the Summit
- Equip young people to understand how opportunity is changing and to actively design and navigate multiple pathways over time, including employment, entrepreneurship, innovation-led work, and hybrid careers, in a rapidly digitizing and AI-influenced economy.
- Strengthen innovation and job-creation capacity among SMEs and startups by enabling collaboration with skilled students, universities, and ecosystem partners to translate skills, ideas, and technology into solutions, ventures, and employment opportunities.
- Advance alignment across universities, enterprise, investors, and policymakers by demonstrating how collaboration, trust, and incentive-based models can connect education to real-
Agenda
All times are listed in CAT.
Day 1: February 23, 2026
9:00-9:10 a.m.: Arrival at CMU-Africa, KSEZ
9:10-9:20 a.m.: Welcome remarks - Stanley Mukasa, Associate Director of Entrepreneurship, CMU-Africa
9:20-9:30 a.m.: Opening remarks - Tim Brown, Interim Director, CMU-Africa
9:30-9:40 a.m.: Remarks - Hon. Claudette Irere, Minister of State for Education, Rwanda
9:40-10:40 a.m.: Panel Discussion 1 - Reimagining Pathways to Opportunity: Youth, Innovation, and Africa’s Future of Work
This panel explores how pathways to opportunity for Africa’s youth are evolving, what exists, what is missing, and what must be reimagined. It examines the role of young people, policy, and innovation ecosystems in shaping inclusive and future-ready opportunities across sectors.
Panelists:
- Jude Rwaka, Head of IT, Rwandair
- Fatima Sirelkhatim, International Labour Organization, Rwanda
- Evelyne Rutazaha, Regional AI Policy Advisor Giz
- Keith Straughan, Professor of Global Entrepreneurship and Digital Technology Innovation, CMU-Africa
- Moderator: Sandra Malaika, Associate Director of Impact, CMU-Africa
10:40-11:00 a.m.: Coffee break
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.: Workshop 1 - Students: Shaping Your Pathway
This session helps students reflect on emerging roles, skills,sectors, opportunity areas, and how their desired pathways align with them. It supports students to identify practical next steps toward employment, entrepreneurship, or innovation-led careers.
- Facilitator: Hanène Duprat, Director of Employability, AL Akhawayn University
Forum: Aligning Education, Enterprise, and Policy for Opportunity Creation (Faculty, Corporates, SMEs, and Policymakers)
The forum is moderated in a table-talk format where 4 stakeholder groups collaboratively explore how incentives, trust, and collaboration models can align education, enterprise, and policy to enable innovation-led opportunity creation for youth in response to changing skills demand, new forms of work, and global challenges.
- Moderator: Deborah Bartlett, Senior Executive AUI Global, AL Akhawayn University
12:00-1:00 p.m.: Networking lunch and photos
1:00-2:00 p.m.: Workshop 2 - Skills, Talent, and Corporate Opportunity (Students and Corporate)
This workshop brings three CEOs from leading corporations together to share how skills needs are evolving across their sectors and what talent must do to position itself over the next 3–5 years. It will highlight emerging skill trajectories, unmet industry needs, and opportunity gaps where young people can contribute, whether as employees, innovators, or solution creators.
Speakers:
- Jude Rwaka, Head of IT, Rwandair
- Skyler Speakman, Senior Research Scientist and Manager for A.I. Sciences at IBM Research - Africa
- Facilitator: Alex Ntale, CEO ICT Chamber, Rwanda
2:30-3:30 p.m.: Opportunities Activation Stage: Students, Employers, and Investors
An interactive activation space connecting students with employers, founders, and investors around real pathways to opportunity.
3:30-4:00 p.m.: Coffee break
4:00-5:00 p.m.: Global Challenge: Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Action
Student teamwork led by coaches
5:00 p.m.: Shuttles to hotel
Day 2: February 24, 2026
9:00-9:10 a.m.: Arrival at CMU-Africa, KSEZ
9:10-9:20 a.m.: Keynote Speech: Navigating Opportunity in a World Shaped by Artificial Intelligence with Skyler Speakman, Senior Research Scientist & Manager for A.I. Sciences at IBM Research - Africa
9:20-9:30 a.m.: Keynote Speech: Building Africa’s AI-Ready Economy with Esther Kunda, Director General, Innovation and Emerging Technologies, Ministry of ICT and Innovation, Government of Rwanda
9:30-9:40 a.m.: Impact In Practice
- Talent Activation: Mitch Matheri, Guild President CMU-Africa
- Venture Formation Under Constraint: Sarah Sunday Moses, Co-Founder, AfyaWave Ltd
9:40-10:40 a.m.: Panel Discussion 2 - Building the University-to-Venture Pipeline
Drawing on institutional experiences, this panel examines how universities are designing structured pathways, from ideation to prototyping, validation, and commercialization, what has, and has not worked.
Panelists:
- Yehea Ismail, Director of Center of Nanoelectronics, American University in Cairo
- Jennifer Batamuliza, IT Lecturer and Head of Data Driven Incubation Hub, University of Rwanda
- Jane Hanna, Deputy Director AAST Entrepreneurship Center
- Sunday Adebisi, Professor of Entrepreneurship Hub & Strategic Management, University of Lagos
- Moderator: Muhammad Aliyu, Founding President Africa Innovators Society CMU-Africa
10:40-11:00 a.m.: Coffee break
11:00 a.m.-12:00 p.m.: Workshop 2 - Students: Turning Problems into Opportunity
Drawing on design thinking principles, this session focuses on how to turn complex global challenges into entrepreneurial opportunities. It prepares students to frame problems, test ideas, and collaborate effectively ahead of the Global Challenge Competition.
- Facilitator: Sunday Adebisi, Professor of Entrepreneurship Hub & Strategic Management, University of Lagos
Workshop 1 SMEs - Investment readiness
Speakers:
- John Brittell, Managing Partner 6 Figure Ventures
- Maria Inziani, Principal at Seven Capital Ventures
- Facilitator: Keith Straughan, Professor of Global Entrepreneurship and Digital Technology Innovation, CMU-Africa
12:00-1:00 p.m.: Networking lunch and photos
1:00-2:00 p.m.: Workshop 3 - Collaborative Innovation for Impact (Students and SMEs)
This session shows how collaborative innovation between students and Startups turns skills into jobs, ventures, and solutions to real-world challenges.
Speakers:
- Abiy Tadesse, Startup and Innovative Enterprise Development Senior Expert, Ministry of Innovation and Technology, Ethiopia
- Micheal Odongo, CEO Angaza Center
- Samuel Njuguna Ruhiu, Lecturer Department of Computing and Informatics, University of Nairobi
- Facilitator: Surya Raghu, Professor, University of Witwatersrand
2:30-3:30 p.m.: Global Challenge - Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Action
Student teamwork led by coaches
Workshop 4 - GenAI and Agentic AI for Business (SMEs)
- Speaker: Rui Costa, CTO of Indie Campers
3:30-4:00 p.m.: Coffee break
4:00-5:00 p.m.: Global Challenge: Innovation and Entrepreneurship in Action
Preliminary pitches and feedback for each team with their coaches
5:00 p.m.: Shuttles to hotel
Day 3: February 25, 2026
9:00-9:30 a.m.: Arrival at CMU-Africa, KSEZ
9:30-9:40 a.m.: Welcome remarks
9:45-11:00 a.m.: Panel Discussion 3 - Entrepreneurship as a Career Pathway: Ecosystem, Policy, and Opportunities in Africa
The panel reflects on how shifting labour markets, technological change, and demographic pressures are redefining entrepreneurship as both a career choice and a job-creation strategy.
Panelists:
- Ivan Ntwali, Country Director Rwanda, Mastercard Foundation
- Thelma Quaye, Director of Infrastructure, Skills and Empowerment, Smart Africa
- Tihtina Zenebe Gebre, Senior Economist in the Education Global Practice, World Bank for East and Southern Africa region
- Esther Kunda, Director General, Innovation and Emerging Technologies - Ministry of ICT and Innovation, Government of Rwanda
- Moderator: William Mutero, Director, Center for Inclusive Digital Transformation (CIDTA), CMU-Africa
11:00-11:30 a.m.: Pitch session - Global Challenge Competition 6 teams
11:30-11:40 a.m.: Coffee break
11:40-11:50 a.m.: Award Ceremony - Global Challenge Competition
11:50 a.m.-12:00 p.m.: Closing remarks - Tim Brown, Interim Director, CMU-Africa
12:00-12:10 p.m.: Group photos
12:10-1:15 p.m.: Lunch
1:15-3:30 p.m.: Kigali city tour
6:30 p.m. onwards: Dinner - Venue TBD (African attire)