Kujenga Akwaaba Framtid

The virtuous cycle

Three programmes, one loop.

Students who build skills become students who travel; students who travel come back to teach, and launch their own research and innovation journeys.

Kujenga

A six-week course in the mathematics behind modelling and AI, written and taught by African women researchers, run hybrid on seven campuses at once.

Akwaaba

Top performers spend two to three months at a European partner university with a supervisor, a project, and a cohort of peers.

Framtid

African scholars come to Uppsala to write and film new courses — next steps are agentic AI — and to meet the startups their students will build with.

For students

Your path starts on your own campus.

You do not need a scholarship, a visa or a contact in Europe to begin. You need six weeks and a problem worth solving where you live.

Kujenga sessions running simultaneously across partner campuses in Africa, in lecture halls, boardrooms and on video calls. — Kujenga, February 2026 — seven campuses, one classroom

Dec–Jan

Applications open Every year

Your university’s Kujenga facilitator advertises the course locally. Anyone who can commit to the work can be admitted — Undergraduate and Masters students especially, from computer science, engineering, maths, statistics, health sciences and neighbouring fields.
February

Six weeks of Kujenga

Four questions, one a week, each one teaching the mathematics behind an answer. Six to eight hours a week, taught hybrid by local instructors with the whole Kujenga network behind them.
March

Your final project The assessment

You use the skills you have learnt in the course to complete an individual project that addresses a real local challenge — in health, agriculture, accessibility, education or community data. You are graded on originality, implementation, analysis and how clearly you explain your idea.
Sep–Nov

Akwaaba

The highest-scoring students get access to further courses and mentorship. They also become eligible to visit a European partner university for two to three months. A supervisor, a research project, a shared office with the rest of your cohort, and a plan for joint supervision when you go home. Flights, accommodation, insurance and the visa process are arranged for you.
Beyond

PhD ready

Akwaaba is designed to make you ready for PhD studies or to help you start a career in innovation. Alumni co-ordinate Kujenga, tutor at their home campuses and write new modules — the course you take was built by the women who came before you.

A course in data science taught by African women

What you study

Are healthier people happier people? Fitting lines to data, differentiation, regression.
Can we predict a disease outbreak? Differential equations, phase planes, the SEIR model.
Are Ethiopian or Kenyan runners the fastest? Hypothesis testing and the t-statistic.
How did Google make billions of dollars? Matrices, eigenvalues and the PageRank algorithm.

Every lesson is open and online. Take a look at Kujenga, or browse all of our courses.

“It’s especially exciting to see so many young women gaining confidence and building their skills in AI and machine learning.”

Victoria Sitati — Programme Coordinator

“Spending time with other researchers is very motivating — especially in Uppsala, where I love biking to work and taking evening walks.”

Akwaaba scholar, 2025 cohort

Mirmir — research

Off the loop, and into a PhD.

Mirmir is Amharic for research — a six-week course, becomes a research visit to Europe and soon they are doing cutting-edge research.

Beimnet Zenebe, Kujenga coordinator and Akwaaba alumna.

Beimnet Zenebe · Limerick

A PhD on learning to code with AI

After taking part in Akwaaba, Beimnet Zenebe is now doing a PhD investigating how generative AI is reshaping software engineering education at the Department of Computer Science and Information Systems, University of Limerick.

Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende, who heads Makerere’s AI Lab.

Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende · Makerere

Two Google-financed PhD students

Dr. Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende heads Makerere’s AI Lab and its Centre for Artificial Intelligence. She is supervising two Google-financed PhD students and building doctoral capacity for those returning from Akwaba.

Professor Elena Gaura of Coventry University.

Elena Gaura · Coventry

One doctorate, two universities

Coventry already awards joint doctorates with Stellenbosch and Walter Sisulu: one candidate, enrolled at both universities, supervised by both. With Professor Elena Gaura we are working to open that same route across the rest of the cluster.

Professor Chika Yinka-Banjo of the University of Lagos.

Chika Yinka-Banjo · Lagos

Two labs, two thousand people

Prof. Chika Yinka-Banjo is pioneer director of UNILAG’s AI UniPod and founded AIRLAB, which trains in AI and robotics from the grassroots up. Together they have reached over 2,000 people. In 2026 she won grants from Google DeepMind and the WISE–IIE consortium on GenAI in higher education. Her PhD student Blessing Yama, now an Assistant Lecturer, runs Kujenga in Nigeria.

Professor Francesco Petruccione of Stellenbosch University.

Stellenbosch · Quantum research group

Where the course was written

Prof. Francesco Petruccione’s quantum research group works on quantum machine learning and physics-informed models, and anchors Kujenga in South Africa. Amy Rouillard came through the group and is one of the four coordinators who wrote and now teach the course.

Christine Musanase of the University of Rwanda.

Christine Musanase · Rwanda

Machine learning in the field

Christine Musanase teaches information systems at the University of Rwanda and is doing a PhD through the African Centre of Excellence in IoT, which has incubated over 60 projects. Her research puts machine learning and sensors to work on crop and fertiliser recommendations and soil quality for Rwandan farmers.

Kiakia — innovation

Off the loop, and into a product.

Kiakia is Yoruba for swiftly — the idea that a researcher who can build should not have to wait years to get their idea out there.

A football analytics app built by the agent, showing a World Cup group-stage squad breakdown.

Mahlet Sewinet · Twelve

An agent that builds the app for you

Kujenga graduate Mahlet “Mahi” Sewinet built an AI agent that builds football analytics applications on Twelve’s Earpiece API. You describe the app you want in plain language; the agent checks the data actually exists, proposes a plan, and builds it.

twelve.football

Founders at a Because She Can Bloom & Build brunch in Accra.

Hilina Ayenew · Because She Can

A founder’s voice, kept warm at scale

Another Kujenga graduate, Hilina Ayenew, is helping Otema Yirenkyi and Kweyakie Blebo at Because She Can build Ascendency — a mentoring journey, with a chatbot that carries the founder’s own voice, captured directly from them.

bscascend.lovable.app

Victor Odumuyiwa, director of NITHUB at the University of Lagos.

Victor Odumuyiwa · Lagos

40 startups, 8,000 trained

Professor Victor Odumuyiwa directs NITHUB at the University of Lagos. In three years it has backed more than 40 startups and trained over 8,000 people. The shortest route from a course project to a company runs straight through it.

nithub.unilag.edu.ng

For academics

Bring a cohort to your university.

If you are at a European university and want to host African researchers, the hard part is not the ambition — it is visas, budgets, housing and matching students to supervisors. We have done all of it, and we will hand you the blueprint.

Cohort size: 3–8 students, minimum three. Friendships between the visitors turn out to be one of the biggest benefits — host a cohort, not an individual.
Who comes: Top performers from the Kujenga course, plus direct nominees from African partner universities. Women are prioritised.
Supervisor time: 2 hours per week for two to three months. Students work on a flexible schedule in shared office space and meet you weekly.
Budget: With flights, visa, living expenses and accommodation, €5,000–6,000 per student in total for one student visit.
Projects: Self-contained, matched to interests of the students, and pointing towards a PhD. Local coordinators line up supervisors before arrival.
Example calendar: April confirm and start visas · May match projects and book travel · June embassy paperwork · August budgets and access cards · September–November the visit.

An Akwaaba scholar presenting her work to the cohort during a research visit in Uppsala. — Akwaaba cohort seminar, AT STARTUP IN STOCKHOLM

“The valuable opportunities to collaborate and exchange ideas with other researchers — that is what I appreciate most.”

Akwaaba scholar, 2025 cohort

Get going

First Uppsala, in 2024 and 2025. Now Groningen and Luxembourg as well, in 2026. You can be next!

Just email David or Kajsa today and we will talk you through the process.

For funders

A small amount of funding makes a massive difference.

All funding of this project goes to travel, student budgets and local teaching support. It is all spent with partners who overdeliver. The project builds capacity in Europe and Africa. Sums of money that would barely register elsewhere change what a whole cohort can do. Here are examples.

€12,000

Keeps the cycle turning for a yearCo-ordination and visits in both directions, so the course keeps being rewritten by the people who teach it.

€15,000

Puts Kujenga on six campusesFacilitators, rooms and connectivity for the whole six-week course — around 180 students in one intake.

€20,000

Funds a PhD student for a yearA doctoral student in Africa, co-supervised online by a European supervisor, on a problem that matters where they live.

€24,000

Brings four researchers to EuropeFour women researchers, a full Akwaaba visit each — flights, visa, housing and budget, and a supervisor waiting for them.

Talk to us

Existing support comes from Uppsala’s IT Equal Opportunities Group, Vinnova and UUniFy AI. We are looking for partners to carry the cycle to more European universities in 2027.

Email David Sumpter or Kajsa Hallberg Adu at Uppsala University.

The Akwaaba cohort together at an evening session during their research visit to Uppsala. — The 2025 Akwaaba cohort, Uppsala

Current partners

Thirteen universities, two continents, one cluster.

Kujenga, Akwaaba and Framtid run inside CoRE AI — the Africa–Europe Cluster of Research Excellence in Artificial Intelligence, founded by ARUA and The Guild.