Chloe Teevan talks to Melody Musoni to explore how African innovators, researchers, and policymakers are shaping an AI ecosystem that responds to local realities. It highlights a shift from being consumers of technology to producers of homegrown solutions that are already transforming sectors like agriculture, health, and education.

The discussion tackles the two sides of the AI debate in Africa: the pessimists, who worry about risks like data bias and the push from Big Tech for profit , and the optimists, who see a chance to tackle long-standing challenges. A central theme is that African countries are determined not to be left behind in the Fourth Industrial Revolution as they were in the past.

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The EU's green and digital ambitions depend on a stable supply of critical raw materials like lithium, cobalt and graphite. With growing concerns over value chain security and dependence on single countries like China, the EU has launched the Critical Raw Materials Act to build more resilient supply chains. But how can Europe build new partnerships, particularly in Africa, to achieve this?

In this episode of Europolis, Chloe Teevan is joined by ECDPM's Poorva Karkare, senior policy analyst and expert on industrialisation and regional integration in Africa. They discuss the complexities of the EU's strategy, the role of partner countries in Africa, the much-discussed Lobito Corridor project, and the unavoidable influence of China. Poorva argues that true strategic autonomy for the EU may require innovative partnerships that leverage, rather than exclude, Chinese capabilities in African countries.

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Chloe Teevan and Gautam Kamath interview Rahul Matthan, one of India's leading technology lawyers, to explore India's innovative approach to tech regulation as a "third way" between the US's hands-off approach and Europe's prescriptive regulation.

The episode highlights how this approach can unlock data abundance and address European concerns about sovereignty and competitiveness by influencing soft infrastructure and encouraging innovation within public rails. It also points to the potential for EU-India collaboration in creating interoperable frameworks and aligning objectives for digital ecosystems.

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Chloe Teevan and Gautam Kamath interview Kai Zenner, Head of Office for MEP Axel Voss (European People's Party) and Senior Fellow at the Technical University of Munich. Kai was instrumental in the finalization of the AI Act and is a well-known commentator on European tech policy.

A paradigm shift in transatlantic relations is forcing Europe to realize that it's "now or never" for significant changes in digital policy. Concerns about potential foreign control over critical data are pushing EU policymakers to act. 

Kai Zenner discusses his role in the EuroStack initiative: a grassroots movement uniting diverse individuals who feel Europe has become a "digital colony" dependent in critical areas. He describes the biggest hurdle is a lack of political leadership willing to make the necessary hard, strategic investment choices, rather than fragmented small investments.

Gautam Kamath concludes by discussing Europe's strategic interdependencies, noting a divide between those advocating for purely European solutions and those recognizing Europe's need for openness and partnerships. Europe's historical strengths lie in being an open trading bloc and fostering consensus and needs to forge mutual partnerships with countries like Brazil (green technologies), Africa (AI), and India (skills and tech stack): moving beyond the "Brussels effect" and focusing on what Europe can learn from its global partners in a multipolar world.

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Chloe Teevan and Gautam Kamath interview Robin Berjon, French-Australian technologist, Deputy Director of the IPFS Foundation, and a major thinker on technology sovereignty and the tech stack.

Robin Berjon explains that power in technology stems from operating infrastructures and that the current governance model for these infrastructural systems is largely autocratic, controlled by monopolies or duopolies. This autocratic power, which sets rules for users, can seep into society, potentially making society itself autocratic. The rules set by these digital monopolies can even become more important to businesses, like publishers, than state laws, leading to a loss of self-governance for collectives.

He argues that the problem isn't a lack of innovation; it's the capture of architectural control points (e.g., how revenue flows, system defaults) by a tiny number of actors, leading to high power concentration. Breaking these monopolies requires intervention at the infrastructural level to liberate these control points, not just more innovation. 

Instead of trying to replicate Silicon Valley's model, which could lead to similar problems with European companies, the solution lies in breaking down digital problems into components and rebuilding them as governance infrastructure. 

The India Stack is presented as an interesting example of this approach: by allowing users on both sides of two-sided markets like ride-hailing to jointly control the network, it enables innovation and works better for both providers and consumers, unlike systems controlled by singular monopolies like Uber or Amazon.

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Switching from an off-budget EDF to a unique EU instrument (NDICI-Global Europe) has some technical implications for the EU and for partner countries, which in turn may bring some political consequences to the relationships between them. The NDICI-Global Europe brings in simplicity, flexibility, agility, and reactivity - all crucial to making the EU a more geopolitical player. 

To understand how the changes land in reality, ex-EU ambassador to the Republic of Cameroon, Philippe van Damme, describes what limitations and potential of the EU’s new approach have been revealed in practice and how the EU has learned, or not learned, from previous approaches. 

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The definition of mutual interests is a good occasion to ask how development objectives are integrated in the Global gateway strategy and the NDICI-Global Europe. Moreover, the programming phase of the NDICI-Global Europe allowed the EU not only to define its cooperation activities, but primarily to set its interests and priorities for each partner country, and then seek where and how these could match with the partner country’s priorities. 

As Botswana’s ambassador to the Kingdom of Belgium and permanent representative to the EU, H.E. Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba reveals how Botswana has negotiated its mutual interests with the EU, how this affects its partnership and the asymmetry of this relationship.

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Broadening the partnerships has been one of the significant shifts of the EU development cooperation’s recent evolution. On paper, the EU aims at engaging in a more meaningful manner with civil society, and at supporting them in a more effective way. But in reality, how has the relationship between the EU and civil society in partner countries changed with the EU’s new approach to development? 

Moses Isooba is the executive director of the Uganda National NGO Platform (UNNGOP), an organisation uniting national and international NGOs in the country, and stresses the importance of engaging with civil society to enhance the participation, legitimacy and influence of its projects.

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