Workshop X: Wired for the future: Building renewable energy & the talent pipeline powering Africa’s energy transition

Africa's renewable energy sector is undergoing a dual disruption: the accelerating deployment of mini-grids, hybrid systems and decentralised energy technologies on one hand, and the rapid emergence of artificial intelligence and digital tools that are reshaping how these systems are designed, financed and operated on the other. Yet the workforce pipeline expected to drive this transition remains constrained — not by a shortage of technical talent, but by a persistent gap between what universities teach and what industry demands: data literacy, regulatory fluency, entrepreneurial agility and the ability to deploy AI tools in low-connectivity, data-scarce environments.

Building directly on the TEA-LP Roundtable discussions at EAIF 2024 (Lagos) and EAIF 2025 (Kampala) — where industry partners identified soft skills deficits, unreliable sector data and slow curriculum reform cycles as critical barriers — this 2026 closed-door session is further anchored in TEA-LP's own ongoing programmes: its support of 30 partner universities in developing masters-level energy access curricula; its suite of ECSA-accredited CPD courses including the Integrated Data Energy Analytics (IDEA) course that directly bridges AI, machine learning and energy systems; and its Future Female Leaders in Energy programme. Participants will leave with three co-designed tools: a draft East African Green Skills Passport framework, an AI curriculum sprint model, and a formalised soft-skills and mentorship transfer scheme.