Building a pan-African community lowering barriers to entry for participation in collective intelligence, cooperative AI and democratic infrastructure — through art, research, practice and enthusiasm
Launch!
Abstract
Wamoja.Africa (“Those who are one” — Swahili) is a grassroots community helping make African collective intelligence (CI), cooperative AI and democratic infrastructure more accessible across the continent.
CI is a field of study growing in popularity that provides a framing with the potential to weave together networks of ideas and minds across domains and scales. Microbiology, neuroscience, group psychology, sociology, economics, ecology — all are examples of these domains. CI seeks to investigate common patterns throughout them — from cells to societies, from microbes to markets.
Yet it remains surprisingly hard to find accessible on-ramps to participate in CI as a dedicated field of study. Wamoja.Africa lowers barriers to participation through four complementary modes of entry — art/storytelling, research, practice, and enthusiasm.
Democratically owned and governed infrastructure (e.g. African cooperatives for data, compute and education) that enables African CI and cooperative AI can itself benefit from developing these capacities, in a potential virtuous cycle — Wamoja.Africa aims to help coordinate such efforts.
This workshop marks the official launch of Wamoja.Africa — join us online and in person after the Deep Learning Indaba for seminar series, workshops, ideathons, projects, conversations, fundraising and more!
Workshop agenda (1 hour)
- 15:00 — Live Performance + CI Scale Wall (25 min) | Ilze Wessels + surprise artist(s)
Collective intelligence performance and interactive art exhibition - 15:20 — Community introduction and call to action (10 min) | Chris Fourie
- 15:35 — Collective Intelligence and AI Governance in Africa (25 min) | Ayantola Alayande (Global Center on AI Governance)
A community-first onramp
for collective intelligence, cooperative AI, and democratic infrastructure
Goals & objectives
We follow a community-first approach inspired by the Grassroots Participatory Community (GPC) model: start with accessible collaborative tasks, build shared vocabulary, then grow sustained capacity.
- Build shared language across collective intelligence, cooperative AI, and democratic infrastructure.
- Bring currently siloed communities into dialogue — in an African context.
- Identify and seed the first collaborative tasks that continue beyond the session.
Expected outcomes
- A named community of practice (Wamoja.Africa) with multiple entry points.
- A collaboratively built Scale Wall mapping participants’ work onto a cells-to-ecosystems framework.
- At least one seeded collaborative task (reading group, pilot, or survey).
- Concrete sign-ups: core members, working groups, and cross-institutional collaborations.
- A published open-access summary, reading list, and community directory.
Live Performance
Ilze Wessels + surprise artist(s)
Abstract TBA
Scale Wall
(interactive exhibition)
A large-format participatory art installation inside the session after the workshop room.
During the live performance, participants who enter will be invited to take two colours of yarn and tie a knot on threads that connect four or five representations of scale, from the microscopic to ecosystems.
The first colour indicates the scale at which one’s work currently takes place.
The second colour
Collective Intelligence for
African AI Governance
Abstract TBA
Four doors in
No matter your background, there’s a natural way to enter — and these doors connect with one another.
- 01
Art
Bio-art, sonification, data visualisation, storytelling, craft — sensory and emotional engagement with CI concepts.
- 02
Research
Multi-agent systems, biological CI, game theory, alignment, data governance — shared vocabulary that links disciplines.
- 03
Practice
Citizen science, cooperative design, community organising, data stewardship — concrete projects and low-cost infrastructure.
- 04
Enthusiasm
Curiosity about intelligence, cooperation, biology, African futures — open meetings, accessible materials, no gatekeeping.
Workshop Team
Join Wamoja.Africa
This session is the seed event — the goal is an ongoing community that continues to run projects, reading groups, and collaborations throughout the year.
- Volunteer for an organising role
- Propose a breakout topic or project
- Help seed a reading group or working group