February 2, 2026 – Wits University
AMLD Africa 2026 will encourage African-led education, research and innovation in artificial intelligence and machine learning.
Collaboration in machine learning and artificial intelligence research and development across all African countries, cultures and economies is what sets the continent apart from other continents and creates meaningful and lasting impact through innovation and entrepreneurship.
“In 2017, Wits University and others launched Deep Learning “When we launched Indaba, we were struck by the interest in AI and ML in Africa. Now, we’ve gone from a very small, isolated group just starting to dabble in AI to one of the strongest and most vibrant AI communities in the world. We’re full of amazing people who are really building something that can change the world. Wits University’s Machine Intelligence and Neural Discovery (MIND) Institute.
Mr. Rossman delivered the opening remarks of the AMLD Africa 2026 Conference. The conference brought together students, young professionals, scientists, researchers and machine learning experts from African countries and beyond at Wits University’s Science Stadium for one of the highlights of the African continent’s artificial intelligence calendar.
AMLD Africa (Applied Machine Learning Days Africa) was founded by African students and alumni of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology EPFL in Lausanne, Switzerland, with a mission to democratize AI and machine learning across the continent.
This year’s main conference focused on the most pressing current AI and ML issues facing Africa.
AI for Healthcare AI for Cultural Preservation AI for Sustainability AI Governance AI Ethics AI for Economic Empowerment
AMLD Africa also brings together academia, industry, and policy to empower communities through comprehensive access to AI knowledge and tools. Its goal is to break down financial and geographic barriers, scale African talent, and drive innovation to address the continent’s unique challenges.
This year’s conference also focused on startups and entrepreneurship. AMLD Africa Chairman Khalil Aouani Sherif said: “Research is important, but we also need entrepreneurial spirit, people who believe in themselves and are supported by the right investors. These types of events and gatherings generate many ideas and opportunities that we want to take advantage of. Thanks to AMLD, more opportunities could emerge.”
Wisdom at AMLD Africa 2026
Joining Rosman from Wits is Dr Martin Bekker, a computational social scientist and AI ethics researcher in the School of Computer Science and Applied Mathematics, and a fellow at the Wits MIND Institute. His talk questioned the very nature of values (and value research) itself, asking how ethical frameworks are defined, measured, and encoded into probabilistic models. We discussed how to develop a more robust approach to the interface between human ethics and machine output by reframing the conversation from abstract philosophy to concrete metrics.
Professor Nasreen Mahomed, Academic Head of the School of Radiology at Wits University, highlighted the role of AI diagnostics in advancing digital health and improving diagnostic accuracy, efficiency and access to care. He emphasized the need for clinically managed and ethically deployed AI, supported by interoperable digital systems, sovereign data, and strong privacy protections.
Dr. Muhammad Ahsan Mahboob, Director of Wits’ Sibanye-Stillwater Digital Mining Institute (Digimine), spoke at the AI for Energy Transition Subtract and talked about climate adaptation and mining.
