"What motivated me to spend the last ten years spreading access to the network is that I’ve always felt that there was not much point in having the content there if a lot of people can’t use it. We are slowly getting there.The internet is beginning to pervade, and capital cities of Africa now at least have some degree of access, but that’s not good enough yet. We still have to bring it further out so that people in rural areas have access."

"If you use the internet and apps, they work on automated decision making based on what’s there, and they’ve been doing that for decades, so AI is not something new. The question we need to be asking from this story is What kind of information is inside these systems? They can be used to connect us and build and improve our worlds, but at the same time, they can be very scary and can be used to drive hate."

"We need to understand that if we don’t have controls, or don’t understand what is really going on, AI just becomes some of us, it can be used for nefarious means, and doesn’t represent our ideals, our values, and the things that we want in our societies."

"Representation matters in building these AI systems, if we don’t build in what we want, then they don’t represent us."

"Part of my work at the Ecumenical Documentation and Information Centre for Eastern and Southern Africa was to organise training workshops in documentation techniques."

"I collaborated with a Rome based NGO, the International Documentation Centre (IDOC). Through IDOC I made contact with Interdoc, and in December 1987 a Dutch Interdoc member came to Zimbabwe and demonstrated the use of modems and email at a workshop. Subsequently we included email and modem training in all our workshops. We supplied our group with modems, and astonishingly, at least 5% managed to stay connected using long distance modem to modem connections until, by the early 1990s, they could use the far easier and cheaper Fidonet networks established through the Economic Commission for Africa, the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) and APC."

"I’m Nancy Hafkin. I live now in Boston, Massachusetts in the US. And the bulk of my work years were spent in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where I was working at the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa."

"I think my proudest achievements were to be able to set up and launch the first program at the United Nations to promote information technology in a region. And the region was of course Africa. I got into it, as I’ve gotten into many things, starting out from a personal interest. I had been in charge of a research and publications program on women and development. And in order to do it, publications were produced using Selectric typewriters and pink correction fluid."

"Global Learning – is that the field becomes increasingly more than just knowledge, but it becomes a field that is about what you do with that knowledge."

"I hold two fundamental beliefs close to my heart,” she explains. “First, I’m a technology explorationist. I believe in pushing technology as far as possible because that’s how society progresses. Second, ignoring the inevitable is the worst decision we can make."

"Winning the Google Science Competition was a pivotal moment for me. It not only validated my belief that young people can drive significant change, but also opened doors to a global platform where I could advocate for sustainability. The experience taught me that innovation paired with advocacy can create meaningful impact."

"My advice is simple: start small, but think big. We can’t tackle sustainability challenges overnight, but every action matters."