Cyberweek Africa 2026 closes with focus on AI cyber threats

**Cyber Week Africa 2026 closed on Friday having convened stakeholders from across the continent to discuss *Cyber threat intelligence in the Age of AI. ***

Government, private sector, academia, non-profits and start-ups all acknowledged the challenges AI presents in protecting critical information, networks and even trust online.

Speakers also recognized the opportunity to leverage AI with the right policies, technologies and skills.

The annual event was led by the Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy with the Kenya School of Government, Ministry of Interior and National Administration, National Cybersecurity Agency and University of Nairobi in collaboration with Cyber

The event was attended by more than 1,200 people from 20 Countries and incorporated a hackathon supported by Expertise France and the European Union, as well as cybersecurity awareness sessions in 21 institutions of higher education across the country in the lead-up to the event.

The event that was event was opened by Stephen Isaboke, PS for Broadcasting and Telecommunications, Dr Martin Koyabe, Chair of the National Cyber Security Agency and Prof Nura Mohamed, DG for Kenya School of Government alongside the EU Ambassador Andreas Peschke and other Amassadors.

During the opening ceremony, the EU Ambassador congratulated 19 newly certified Kenyan SIM3 cyber auditors, whilst Tahar Benattia of Expertise France awarded the winners of the hackathon.

Huawei Kenya’s Country Cybersecurity and Privacy Officer Kaine Zhang spoke during the event as one of the major sponsors, highlighting the importance of building capacity of users as well as providing secure products and solutions; and explained how Huawei is committed to both. 21 Government ICT Officers were awarded at the closing ceremony having completed a network training program supported by Huawei.

His colleague, Lu Hao, Huawei Sub-Saharan Africa’s Regional Expert for Cyber security also spoke on Building a Next-generation Autonomous Intelligent Security Operations System, emphasizing the need for solutions that interconnect with all other systems to ensure complete visibility and thus enable prevention, detection and rapid response.

The event closed with a declaration of several actions that participating organizations would work on to enhance sharing of information as well as remarks from Dr Martin Koyabe.

One of the first major events held in Kenya since the establishment of the National Cyber Security Agency, the attendance throughout by Dr Martin Koyabe, its newly appointed Chairman, showed the dedication the Agency to engaging with stakeholders and collaboration.

He highlighted the need to build trust within stakeholders so that stakeholders can share information effectively and how Digital Sovereignty does not mean Digital Isolation. He emphasized the need for great collaboration between regulators and industry, including sector-specific regulators such as those in the Finance industry.

PAS Internal Security Jacob Narengo closed the event on behalf of the PS for Internal Security and National Administration. He surmised the impact of AI: “AI is a force multiplier both shield and spear. Threat intelligence is how defenders stay ahead knowing about the attack before it strikes, so AI can help defenders detect threats in seconds or it can help attackers fake voices, craft convincing scams and target mobile money users”. He added that “Given preparation, AI multiplies resiliency; but given neglect, it multiples exposure. For Africa, expanding our digital ecosystem without hardening its defenses means building our future on sand”.

He emphasized the existing National Cybersecurity Strategy and AI Strategy as well as the Policies under development including the Digital Policy, Cybersecurity Policy, Data Governance Policy, and AI and Emerging Technologies Policy in an optimistic call to action to participants.

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