Africa Tech Festival 2025 Wraps Up — What It Means for East Africa’s Tech Surge
As the continent’s premier tech gathering in Cape Town draws to a close, innovators from Uganda and East Africa look to bring the momentum home.
Cape Town, South Africa
The 28th edition of Africa Tech Festival 2025 concluded this Thursday 13th November 2035 in Cape Town, hosted at the Cape Town International Convention Centre (CTICC). The event ran from 10–13 November 2025, gathering over 15,000 attendees, 300+ exhibitors, and more than 300 speakers from across Africa and the world.
Key anchor segments included:
AfricaCom (telecoms & connectivity)
AfricaTech (enterprise tech & innovation)
AfricaIgnite (start‑ups & scale‑ups)
The AI Summit Cape Town (AI & future tech)
Speakers and exhibitors spotlighted a range of issues: from connectivity and infrastructure to AI deployment, digital inclusion, regulation, and talent pipelines. For example, the festival’s agenda described how “technology is a key lever for transformation” in African business.
For East Africa — including Uganda — participants used the summit to build partnerships, source investment, and showcase solutions. Delegates from Ugandan fintechs, agritech start‑ups, and digital infrastructure firms reportedly travelled to Cape Town to exhibit and network.
Several announcements and deals were made on the floor: increased investor interest in African start‑ups, pilot programmes for cloud and AI in African enterprises, and new dialogues between governments and private sector on regulation and infrastructure. At the same time, the festival served as a reminder of the region’s gaps: talent shortage, infrastructure bottlenecks, regulatory impediments and financing challenge remain.
Why It Matters
For East Africa’s tech ecosystem: The festival offers a bridge to global capital, expertise and markets. Ugandan firms — if they can plug in — stand to benefit from the ecosystem exposure and partnerships formed at ATF.
For digital infrastructure & inclusion: One of the recurring themes was connectivity and cloud/AI expansion in Africa. East Africa, including Uganda, must keep pace or risk lagging behind in the digital economy.
For talent & job creation: With Africa’s youth bulge and digital transition underway, events like ATF help drive ideas, investment and momentum — potentially creating new jobs and skill‑paths in the region.
For policy & regulation: The festival underscores how policy, regulation and business must align to enable scale. East African governments need to engage with the frameworks and dialogues shaped here so that local businesses aren’t left on the sidelines.
What to Watch
Follow‑through deals: Which Ugandan / East African start‑ups made commitments or partnerships at ATF? Tracking the “after‑conference” results will show if the hype turns into action.
Investor flows into East Africa: Are the investor interest and capital commitments at the festival channelled into East African markets (Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania)?
Regulatory momentum: Will East African governments lean into the regulatory dialogues framed at ATF — for example on AI governance, data privacy, telecoms infrastructure?
Talent & innovation ecosystems: Will East Africa ramp up its “Next Gen Talent” efforts, start‑up pods and innovation hubs to match the scale and ambition spotlighted at ATF?
