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Webinar Update
Webinar W008 on "SDG 2 - Zero Hunger: How Will AI Help Us Achieve This?" was completed on Saturday 18 July 2026. A video on this topic will be uploaded soon to our YouTube channel @AIGrandad999.alanross and to our 10 language-specific channels (e.g. @AIGrandad999.alanross.Spanish, @AIGrandad999.alanross.Hindi, etc.), where there are now over 20 long and 12 short videos on each channel covering the AI and technology disruptions that will affect your country. We encourage you to view and share these with your networks and to ask them to subscribe so they are notified whenever a new video is uploaded.
Our next free webinar, W009, is planned for Saturday 1 August 2026 at 1pm Dublin on the topic: "AI Solutions for People - AI Products and Services." For AI academies, this webinar will showcase the sorts of AI products and services already being provided in other developing countries to meet the new 2.2 billion person market that is now emerging. These are the sorts of practical products and services that you should be training your students to develop so that they too can become local AI entrepreneurs to service the huge previously underserved market that is now emerging or to even provide the connectivity that this potential market needs.
Global South | Governance & Training
1. CHINA LAUNCHES WAICO: A NEW 29-NATION AI ALLIANCE FOR THE GLOBAL SOUTH
On 16-17 July, China formally launched the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organisation (WAICO) at the World Artificial Intelligence Conference in Shanghai, in a ceremony attended by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. WAICO's 29 founding member states include major Global South nations - Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, South Africa, Senegal, Pakistan and Russia among them - and the body is headquartered in Shanghai. Speaking at the conference, President Xi Jinping called on countries to embrace the "historic opportunity" of open-source AI and pledged that China will offer 5,000 AI training and seminar opportunities to people from developing countries over the next five years, alongside new cooperation frameworks with ASEAN, the League of Arab States and the African Union. Xi framed the initiative as preventing "new historical injustices" in AI access, while analysts note Beijing is positioning WAICO to help shape global AI governance norms at the UN, offering an alternative pole to the US-led approach.
Why this matters for AI academies: 5,000 funded AI training and seminar places for developing-country nationals over five years is a concrete, named opportunity - averaging roughly 1,000 places a year across dozens of countries. WAAA academies in founding-member countries (Indonesia, Brazil, Malaysia, South Africa, Senegal, Pakistan and others) should establish now how their national government intends to allocate its share of places, and position affiliated students and staff as candidates for such funded training which will not only result in training but help you create contacts at the centre of AI development in all the countries involved.
Source: Al Jazeera, 17 July 2026
Africa & Europe | Language Models & Startups
2. KENYA AND FRANCE COMMIT EUR1.9M TO BUILD AFRICAN LANGUAGE MODELS, EXTEND AI RESEARCH-TO-VENTURE PROGRAMME TO SIX COUNTRIES
On 14 July, Kenya's Cabinet Secretary for Foreign and Diaspora Affairs Musalia Mudavadi and the French government reaffirmed and extended a bilateral AI programme at Kenya-France Youth Innovation Day in Nairobi. The initiative, Africa Forward AI Clusters, pairs AI training bootcamps with a "Research-to-Venture" phase designed to turn academic AI research into commercial startups. France's General Secretariat for Investment confirmed letters of intent are now signed with six countries - Kenya, Benin, Ghana, Morocco, Egypt and South Africa. At the technical core is a dedicated EUR1.9 million (about $2.2 million) programme to build African large language models, led by Kenyan digital innovation firm Qhala in partnership with French Tech Nairobi. The programme is explicitly framed as bridging a "valley of death" between Africa's growing AI research output and its still-limited high-skilled digital job market - a gap Kenya's own data shows clearly: youth unemployment (ages 15-24) reached 15.2% in 2025.
Why this matters for AI academies: A funded, government-backed "Research-to-Venture" bootcamp pipeline spanning six African countries is exactly the kind of practical, employment-linked programme WAAA academies should be plugging their advanced students into now. If your academy is in Kenya, Benin, Ghana, Morocco, Egypt or South Africa, this is a direct partnership opportunity; if not, it is a template worth proposing to your own government as a bilateral ask. Use this to lobby your government to get involved.
Source: iAfrica.com, 17 July 2026
Africa | Agri-Tech & Practical Solutions
3. LOCALLY-BUILT AI SYSTEM SAVES KENYAN FISH FARMERS FROM MASS DIE-OFFS - AND SHOWS WHAT LOW-COST, LOCALLY-BUILT AI CAN DO
An AI-powered early-warning system built by the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (KMFRI) with Nairobi-based ShoShin Innovation Hub passed its first live test this year at Dunga Beach, Kisumu, on Lake Victoria, with results confirmed in reporting published 16 July. Underwater sensors feed water-quality data to AI models trained on KMFRI's historical research; when the models detect the oxygen-depletion pattern that causes mass fish kills, more than 300 tilapia farmers receive simple SMS alerts with plain instructions ("slow feeding", "move cages"). In its first live triggering, farmers moved more than 450 cages to safety in time - averting a repeat of die-offs that wiped out close to $1 million in stock at the same site in 2024-2025. Notably, ShoShin built the software, cloud infrastructure and even the sensor circuit boards in Kenya specifically to keep deployment costs down. KMFRI has identified 15 further hotspots for rollout, with two more sites going live in the second half of 2026, and a related pilot (E-Samaki, with WorldFish) is now testing the same approach for coastal mariculture in Kilifi and Kwale counties.
Why this matters for AI academies: This is a ready-made applied-AI case study - a locally designed sensor network, a trained institute-industry partnership (KMFRI and ShoShin), and a measurable outcome (zero mass deaths since the February alert, versus roughly $1 million in prior losses). Academies teaching applied AI, IoT or environmental data science now have a documented, citable local example rather than a foreign one, and a live contact point (ShoShin Innovation Hub, Nairobi) for potential student placements or guest lectures.
Source: iAfrica.com / SciDev.Net (Pulitzer Center-supported), 16 July 2026
Africa | Regional Strategy & Regulation
4. COMESA LAUNCHES REGIONAL AI STRATEGY CONSULTATIONS ACROSS 21 COUNTRIES - BUT ONLY 15 OF 54 AFRICAN NATIONS HAVE A NATIONAL AI STRATEGY AT ALL
The Common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA) began national consultations this week toward a harmonised regional AI strategy across its 21 member states, spanning from Egypt to Eswatini. Kenya hosted the opening round in Nairobi (from 29 June); Zambia's round began 13 July, with further member states to follow in the coming weeks. The process, backed by the World Bank's $2.48 billion Inclusive Digitalization in Eastern and Southern Africa (IDEA) programme, aims to produce a regional AI strategy, a harmonised AI regulatory framework and a regional digital-inclusion action plan. COMESA's push is the third overlapping regional AI harmonisation effort this year, alongside the East African Community's April Kigali declaration and a shared AI governance framework adopted by six Francophone West African countries. According to the 2026 Global Index on Responsible AI (GIRAI), only 15 of Africa's 54 countries currently have a national AI strategy at all - the gap COMESA and its regional peers are now trying to close, building on the African Development Bank's 2025 estimate of up to $1 trillion in additional GDP and 40 million digital jobs from AI adoption across the continent by 2035.
Why this matters for AI academies: A harmonised regional AI regulatory framework will directly affect what curriculum content, data-use practices and accreditation standards academies across COMESA's 21 member states are eventually expected to meet. Getting involved now, before those standards are locked in, gives AI academies a genuine chance to feed in views on skills and training provisions through the national consultations, rather than reacting after the fact. WAAA academies can help establish the curriculum content, data-use practices and accreditation standards that across 21 countries.
Source: iAfrica.com, 17 July 2026
Global | Infrastructure & Hardware Costs
5. GLOBAL MEMORY CHIP SHORTAGE PUSHES ENTRY-LEVEL SMARTPHONE PRICES UP 40-50% ACROSS AFRICA, ASIA AND LATIN AMERICA
New Q2 2026 data from Counterpoint Research and IDC, published 13-14 July, confirms global smartphone shipments fell to their weakest second quarter in 13 years, driven by a memory-chip shortage that is hitting budget devices hardest. The root cause: the same three companies (Samsung, SK Hynix, Micron) that supply the low-power DRAM inside affordable smartphones also supply the high-bandwidth memory (HBM) inside AI data-centre chips - and HBM generates three to five times more revenue per wafer, so manufacturers have been steadily reallocating production capacity toward AI infrastructure since 2024. By mid-2026, AI data centres were consuming an estimated 70% of all memory chips produced worldwide, up from 20-30% in 2022. For a sub-$100 device, memory and storage now account for over 64% of total build cost, and IDC reports retail price hikes of 40-50% already documented across Southeast Asia, Africa and Latin America, alongside a 12% year-on-year decline in African smartphone shipments in Q1 2026. IDC describes the shift as "potentially permanent": even when new fabrication capacity comes online from 2028, the same economics that caused the reallocation will still apply, meaning sub-$100 devices - which shipped over 170 million units in 2025 and remain the primary route to the internet for hundreds of millions of people - may not return to their previous price points at all.
Why this matters for AI academies: If your students, especially in rural or lower-income areas, rely on entry-level Android devices to access coursework, AI tools or WhatsApp-based learning platforms, this shortage is a live risk to programme access over the next 12-18 months, not a distant one. Academies relying on "bring your own device" models should start scoping low-cost alternatives (older-generation or certified refurbished devices, which the report specifically flags as retaining pre-shortage pricing) before budgets are set for the next intake. Important to act fast if your AI academy and its students are not to suffer.
Source: Tech Times, 14 July 2026
