Five debates, five expected outcomes

Each panel is built around a central question and what it must deliver. These are not generalist round tables.

09:35 – 10:35

Panel 1 — Cyber-resilience in the age of AI

Protecting organisations as the balance of power shifts

Is AI genuinely shifting the balance of power between attackers and defenders?

Artificial intelligence accelerates defence as much as attack: offensive automation, social engineering of a new kind, increased pressure on critical infrastructure and compressed response times. The debate must go beyond describing the threat to answer an operational question: which capabilities must we build, in what order and with what means?

What the panel should deliver

Identify the shifts in the threat landscape that AI already makes operational in West Africa.
Prioritise the capabilities to strengthen: anticipation, detection, incident response, business continuity and cooperation.
Define a realistic posture for public administrations, operators of vital importance and SMEs.
Set out two regional cooperation priorities, notably on building CERT capacity and public-private coordination.

Expected deliverable

Five digital resilience priorities, taken up in chapter 1 of the 2026 Policy Brief.

Panellists

Brigadier General Guelpétchin Ouattara
Director General of ANSSI Côte d’Ivoire — National Agency for Information Systems Security
Brigadier General El Mostafa Rabii
Former Director General of Morocco’s DGSSI — Kingdom of Morocco
Franck Kié
Commissioner General of the Cyber Africa Forum — Cyber Africa Forum
Tim de Groot
General Manager Benelux, Nordics, North-West & Central Africa — Kaspersky
Madoussou Doumbia
Presidential Adviser for Innovation and the Digital Economy — Office of the President of the Republic of Côte d’IvoireModeration

11:10 – 12:10

Panel 2 — AI: from experimentation to measurable performance

Turning pilots into value

Why do so many AI projects remain experiments, and which ones already create measurable value?

The question is no longer whether companies will use artificial intelligence, but where, how and under what conditions it delivers performance. Data quality, governance, integration into business processes, adoption, costs, risk and return-on-investment measurement: moving from pilot to scale remains the real obstacle.

What the panel should deliver

Document use cases whose economic or operational value is already measured, with evidence.
Establish the conditions for moving to industrial use: data, business integration, adoption, total cost, governance and risk.
Arbitrate between building, buying and co-developing according to the criticality and differentiation of the use case.
Provide executives with a simple framework to prioritise their AI investments.

Expected deliverable

A one-page decision framework: value, feasibility, data, cost, governance and risk. It is consolidated after the summit and shared with participants.

Panellists

Dr Yaya Sylla
Chief Executive Officer — SaH Analytics International
Stéphane Kounandi Coulibaly
Director of Innovation, Start-ups and the Private Sector — Ministry of Digital Transition and Technological Innovation
Karine Sossou
Senior Partner Manager — Simulation, Low-code/No-code, Data & AI — Siemens
Stephan Dauriac
Chief Financial Officer and Executive — Foxtrot International
Delphine Lavaud
CEO ASENSIA AFRICA GROUP — Chair of the EUROTECH Committee — EUROCHAMModeration

12:15 – 13:15

Panel 3 — Digital sovereignty

National, regional or global

Data, cloud, connectivity, infrastructure, cybersecurity: what must we control locally, pool regionally or buy globally?

Digital sovereignty cannot be reduced to data localisation, nor to a choice between local and international cloud. It raises a more demanding question: which capabilities are genuinely strategic for a state and its economy, how far should autonomy be pursued, and at what energy, financial and human cost?

What the panel should deliver

Classify digital assets by the level of control required: sovereign, poolable, or purchasable on the global market.
Make the real cost of autonomy visible: energy, connectivity, skills, quality of service and resilience.
Compare three concrete options: national infrastructure, regional pooling, and global platform under conditions.
Set out five priority recommendations for a pragmatic roadmap in Côte d’Ivoire.

Expected deliverable

A digital asset control matrix and five priority recommendations, taken up in chapter 3 of the 2026 Policy Brief.

Panellists

Gilles Thierry Beugré
Director General of ANSUT — National Agency for the Universal Telecommunications Service
Abdoulaye Touré
Head of Department — Expert in Economic Intelligence and Information Warfare — Office of the President of the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire
Dr Ferdinand Tra
Director, Orange Business & Broadband — President, Orange Cloud & Cyber Solutions
Modibo Samaké
Adviser to the Prime Minister — Office of the Prime Minister of Côte d’Ivoire
N’Gnineman Coulibaly
Head of West & Central Africa — Willis Towers WatsonModeration

15:00 – 16:00

Panel 4 — African innovation: funding, buying, scaling up

From first contract to lasting company

Why do so many promising innovations stall before the first contract, before funding, and then before scaling up?

Africa lacks neither ideas nor entrepreneurs. The wall usually rises after the prototype: reaching the first client, being referenced by a large group or a public administration, funding growth, hiring and expanding across markets. The panel deliberately brings together the entrepreneur, the investor, the major financial player and the support ecosystem.

What the panel should deliver

State the criteria that make an innovation investable and those that make it procurable: they are not the same.
Open the black box of the first contract: the real requirements of a large account and of a public buyer.
Clarify what private equity, bank debt and public schemes actually fund, and what no one funds.
Bring out concrete follow-up avenues: introductions, proofs of concept, support or post-summit schemes.

Expected deliverable

A procurability and investability framework, completed by the follow-up avenues actually announced during the summit.

Panellists

Leslie Ossete
Co-founder & COO — Mstudio
Djibril Doumbia
Managing Director — Comoé Capital
Daouda Coulibaly
Director General — Attijari West & Central Africa
Florence Tahiri-Fadika
Executive Director — Fondation Jeunesse Numérique
Dr Mafini Dosso
President of OIITID — Co-founder of GAÏA Intelligence AfricaModeration

16:05 – 17:05

Panel 5 — AI and the transformation of work

Skills, hiring, reskilling and adoption

AI is already reshaping jobs: how do we develop skills and organisations at the pace of adoption?

Artificial intelligence does not only change tools. It shifts jobs, expected skills, management practices, recruitment and work organisation. The debate therefore cannot be limited to a shortage of digital talent: it concerns the adaptation of the entire workforce, in companies as well as in public administrations.

What the panel should deliver

Prioritise the skills that become critical within three years, by job family.
Balance the effort between initial training, external recruitment and reskilling of existing teams.
Clarify the respective responsibilities of companies, the state and training institutions.
Bring out measurable commitments or initiatives: internships, apprenticeships, hiring, certifications, internal adoption programmes.

Expected deliverable

Skills priorities and measurable commitments or initiatives where the organisations represented can genuinely make them; summarised in chapter 5 of the Policy Brief.

Panellists

Hugues Kouadio
Director General — École Nationale Supérieure de Statistique et d’Économie Appliquée — ENSEA
Sibi Nangbo
Human Resources Director — MTN Côte d’Ivoire
Habib Bamba
Director of Customer Experience — Orange Côte d’Ivoire
Hicham El Achgar
CEO — IT6 Group
Maï Hervé du Penhoat
C-Level Business Coach | Founder — My Energy — Former Group HR Director — Alios FinanceModeration