At SATNAC 2025 in Cape Town, Amdocs executive Idit Duvdevany Aronsohn delivered a pointed warning to industry leaders: the future of artificial intelligence is being shaped now, and Africa must be at the center of it.
Aronsohn, Head of ESG and People Relations at Amdocs, framed her keynote around a defining question: “Can AI be inclusive without Africa or without African data?” Her answer to the continent’s technologists, innovators, and policymakers was direct. “Absolutely no,” she said.
Aronsohn argued that AI is already influencing major decisions across industries, including who is hired, promoted, or left behind. “AI has already decided what’s going to be the future of this room, of our industry,” she said. “In some places it already happens.”
She dismantled the idea of AI as a neutral technology, noting that systems reflect the rules and datasets created by people. “AI by itself doesn’t make mistakes. It also doesn’t drive an agenda. AI simply follows rules that were made by people… and it follows data.”
That reality, she said, creates both risk and opportunity. If AI is trained on historical datasets shaped by exclusion, it will reproduce and intensify inequity. “If the data is from the past, and the past was unfair and biased… then when AI perpetuates the past, the question is, how can we build a future without us?” she said.
Aronsohn introduced a framework describing three personas in the AI ecosystem: the Creators, the Influencers, and the Consumers. She highlighted the underrepresentation of women, African voices, and African languages across all three groups. “Houston, we have a problem,” she said. “We don’t have enough Africa-based talent influencing and creating AI solutions.”
She used the example of early smartphone cameras failing left-handed users to illustrate what happens when technologies are built without diverse creators. “You get some of the pictures being upside down… This is what happens to us,” she said.
Aronsohn warned that exclusion becomes self-reinforcing: biased systems fail to serve certain communities, leading to lower adoption rates, which in turn creates less representative data. She also pointed to the global gender gap in AI adoption, noting that women use AI tools significantly less than men.
Still, her message was ultimately one of action and possibility. “Instead of diversity being the AI-created problem… maybe it could be the path to solution,” she said.
She urged the industry to shift from fear and distrust of AI toward intentional adoption, driven by inclusive design. She called for investment in Africa-centered ethical AI development, improved recruitment practices, and large-scale re-skilling programs to ensure communities become active participants in shaping AI.
Telecom operators, she said, play a crucial role. “They’re not just carriers of data. They’re gatekeepers for digital equality.”
Aronsohn highlighted the “Yes We Gen” initiative, an Amdocs program aimed at introducing middle and high school girls to coding and AI using a free, multilingual toolkit. She encouraged leaders to implement it widely. “This is one of the ways to do it… making sure that we’re driving the young forces into adopting AI, changing AI.”
She ended with a call to leadership and responsibility. “AI is a mirror. It’s a reflection of who we are,” she said. “We can’t blame AI for anything. We just need to make sure that we’re doing it right in the first place.”
Africa, she added, does not need to “catch up” to global innovation. “It can leap ahead. If inclusion is designed from day one.”
Quoting Telkom CEO Serame Taukobong, she said, “The future is being built where people refuse to stay behind… The future of diversity is not written yet. But one thing is certain, AI is not the author. We are.”
Her message closed with a clear charge: Africa’s data, talent, and ethical frameworks must be at the foundation of the AI age, not an afterthought.
