Africell and The Woman Boss have officially launched the ‘Girls in AI’ initiative, marking Global AI Adoption Day 2026 with a bold step toward inclusive digital transformation in The Gambia.
The event brought together industry leaders, educators, young innovators, and development partners to highlight the growing importance of artificial intelligence and the urgent need to ensure that girls and young women are not left behind in the rapidly evolving digital economy.
In her opening speech, The Woman Boss founder and CEO, Awamary Khan, explained that it is about empowerment through technology, promoting innovation and fostering responsibility among girls and young women:
“The Gilrs in AI initiative was created with the notion that we have always believed in creating spaces where women and girls can curate, collaborate, innovate, and grow into leaders and drivers of economic development. It is our commitment to ensuring that girls are not just consumers of technology, but co-creators of the future,” she said.
Through workshops, bootcamps, mentorship programs, and hands-on innovation projects, the Initiative aims to equip girls and young women aged 12 to 25 with foundational knowledge in artificial intelligence, digital skills, and ethical awareness.
“This is not about teaching coding alone; it is about building confidence, curiosity, and capability. The program is designed across key pillars; understanding AI, AI for opportunity and innovation, digital inclusion, and critically, we focus on ethics, safety, and responsibility. We are not just preparing girls to use AI. We are preparing them to question it, shape it, and lead with it. Because when girls are equipped, entire communities change. When girls are confident, economies grow,” Awamary Khan concluded.
CEO of Africell The Gambia, Hussein Diab Ghanem, spoke alongside the CEO and founder of The Woman Boss at the ‘Girls in AI’ initiative launch event on 6 May 2026.
Africell Gambia’s CEO addressed the fear and anxiety that surrounds evolving technologies like AI and explained that it being good or bad, depends on the user. Hussein Diab Ghanem shared his own story to show how new technologies can positively impact people’s jobs:
“When I started at Africell as an engineer, we used to get a lot of menial and repetitive tasks which did nothing to help us grow. We ended up building a system which embedded all the knowledge we had as engineers and automated our work, which in turn allowed us to venture out into a lot more things. Thanks to that, I ended up becoming the CEO of the company”.
Both Africell and the Woman Boss share the belief that the future of AI must be shaped by diverse voices, noting that African perspectives, and particularly those of young women, are essential in building technology that is relevant, ethical, and impactful.
A key highlight of Africell’s contribution is its focus on localized innovation, including solutions such as AfriGPT, an AI-powered platform designed to make artificial intelligence more accessible and relevant to African users. The platform reflects a growing shift toward developing technology that understands local languages, contexts, and everyday needs.
According to Diab Ghanem, this is merely a reflection of how AI is already being used inside the company itself to improve and optimize the workplace and the workforce:
“We have created AI agents capable of answering customers’ questions and solve many of their problems without having to escalate to a human being. We also use AI to read large data sets and make data analyses that allow us to help us to make better decisions about network expansion and overloaded sites, for example,” revealed the CEO.
By partnering on the Girls in AI initiative, Africell and The Woman Boss aim to expand access to digital tools, strengthen AI literacy, and create pathways for young people, especially girls to actively participate in shaping the future of technology.