Diana Tukundane Agaba appointed CISO at Stanbic Bank Uganda

Artificial intelligence is rapidly entering business conversations, but fast adoption does not automatically translate into better decisions or stronger results. At the CIO of the Future Summit in Tanzania, Rohit Thaker, CTO of TEAGTL, Godwin Mbekelu, head of IT at Sportpesa and Amiri Sultani Mziray, head of ICT at I&M Bank Tanzania discussed how organisations can effectively adopt AI as a strategic enabler of business.

In recent years, East African countries have made significant strides in efforts towards data protection. However, Reliance Insurance head of IT, Imani Mwanri, challenges countries within the region to also develop cross-border data regulations with growing need for data exchange between countries.

She has built a two decade career in IT and has an expansive skillset in digital transformation and strategy, technology innovation and strategic leadership.

At the August CIO of the Future Summit in Tanzania, Yas Tanzania IT director Victor Mtefu narrated how he navigated the high-stakes migration from legacy systems during the telco’s rebrand from Tigo. He also shared why revamping core tech relies far more on strategy and governance than on the technology  alone.

In more than ten years of her career, Catherine Bwire, CISO at Ecobank Uganda, has watched women remain outnumbered in IT careers. To change that, she urges female tech leaders to make themselves visible and mentor the younger generation.

He joins Ava Hotel Nairobi from Diamonds Leisure Beach & Golf resort where he served in the same position and where he led the ICT pre-opening of the hotel

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At the CIO of the Future Summit in Dar es Salaam, tech leaders discussed AI's impact on daily operations. Among the panelists was Imani Mwanri, head of IT at Reliance Insurance, who urged tech leaders to embrace AI while warning against abandoning human oversight. 

Mulwana CIO, Robert Jenkins Sibbechai, believes the biggest gap in how organisations use AI isn't the technology itself but the absence of any rules governing what it's allowed to do with the data it's fed. He explains why this complicates cybersecurity and how a decade of oversharing on social media set the stage for it.

At the CIO of the Future Summit held at the Dar es Salaam Serena on 11 September, Dr Allen Mutono delivered a keynote address that challenged IT leaders to think carefully about how AI is deployed in African organisations. He also urged CIOs to equip their teams for an AI-enabled workplace while keeping human judgement at the centre.

The CIO of the Future Summit brought nearly 100 IT leaders together at the Dar es Salaam Serena Hotel on 11 September for a deep look at the forces changing the role of the CIO, with the conversation quickly moving past technology.

AI has not only made work easier for organisations, but it has also added a layer of complexity when dealing with cybersecurity. Across different conversations, Jacqueline Madara, head of ICT at Machakos University, Yuki Ouchi, head of digital products and e-commerce at KFC Kenya, James Kwezi, digital transformation manager at AFR Rwanda, and Alex Siboe Wekunda, CIO at Stanbic Bank Kenya, weigh in on how AI is reshaping the threat on the other side of the firewall.