By Adedapo Adesanya

Google and UpSkill Universe, Sub-Saharan Africa’s leading AI and business skills training partner, have announced a major redesign of the Google Hustle Academy programme. For the first time, the free training initiative is open to everyone, not just business owners.

The new curriculum is focused on equipping individuals and entrepreneurs with practical AI skills and comes at a time when small businesses have become the engine of Africa’s economy, creating over 80 per cent of jobs on the continent. To help them grow, the Hustle Academy was launched in 2022, providing bootcamp-style training on business strategy, digital skills, AI, and leadership. The program has since trained over 18,000 SMEs, with many reporting increased revenue and job creation.

Now, as AI reshapes the job market, the program is evolving. The 2026 edition is built for anyone in Sub-Saharan Africa, including employees, students, and job seekers, who want to use AI to advance their careers. To meet the needs of a diverse audience, the new format includes short, 60-minute webinars and more immersive, high-impact bootcamps. These sessions are laser-focused on putting AI to work immediately in areas like digital commerce, marketing, and growth strategy.

Speaking about the academy, Mr Gori Yahaya, Founder & CEO of UpSkill Universe, said, “The 2026 Hustle Academy is designed to close the AI Skills gap with hands-on training that is short, focused, and immediately useful. AI is reshaping how businesses win and how careers are built, right across this continent. We’re excited to renew our partnership, now in its fifth year with Google, combining their global AI leadership with our deep regional AI expertise. The next wave of AI leaders will come from this continent. We are making sure they are ready.”

The Hustle Academy initiative has strengthened digital competitiveness across emerging African economies by enabling SMEs to move beyond AI awareness to practical implementation, positioning them for sustained growth in an increasingly AI-driven business environment.

“We believe that the future of Africa’s digital economy lies in the hands of individuals and entrepreneurs alike. Our new strategy focuses on scaling reach by training individuals in the latest AI-centred tools and techniques,” said a Google representative.

Applications for the 2026 cohort are now open. Interested participants can apply at: https://rsvp.withgoogle.com/events/hustle-academy

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

To develop the country’s internet ecosystem and build a dedicated connectivity community, the London Internet Exchange (LINX) has launched a 12-month no-charge promotion for all services at its new Ghana Internet Exchange Point, LINX Accra.

LINX Accra went live at the end of 2025, providing a regional interconnection point and a platform for networks to meet and exchange traffic, available from PAIX, Onix and the new Digital Realty data centre launched at the end of last year.

As part of its growth drive, LINX Accra aims to attract major global internet carriers and content delivery networks to keep more traffic local to Ghana, building relationships between local networks and encouraging early adoptions through promotion.

A key aspect is growing the local networking and peering community to reduce Ghana’s reliance on international routing, improve latency, and cut costs for networks and end users across the country.

“Ghana’s connectivity ecosystem is growing fast, and our goal, through the promotion, is to remove early barriers and encourage local ISPs to join and exchange traffic from the start.

“We’ve seen in other African markets that once the local community grows, global networks follow, so this is an important step for building community engagement and driving the localisation of internet traffic in Ghana and West Africa,” the Head of Existing Business for LINX, Inga Turner, said.

Ghana is one of West Africa’s fastest-growing digital markets, with over 70 per cent of the country’s 25 million people accessing the internet, and Accra is connected to six submarine cables to provide international connectivity to the country.

The market is also attracting significant data centre investment with new facilities opening every few months.

LINX has had a successful growth in Kenya, building on a similar promotion for LINX Mombasa and LINX Nairobi, which helped establish and expand the connectivity ecosystem, attracting major global networks and content providers to keep traffic local.

By Adedapo Adesanya

The federal government has announced plans to establish a national cybersecurity coordination council to strengthen Nigeria’s response to rising digital threats.

In a statement, the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy said the council will serve as a multi-stakeholder platform to improve coordination, intelligence sharing, and collaboration between public and private institutions.

The initiative, championed by the Minister of Communications, Mr Bosun Tijani, aims to enhance Nigeria’s ability to respond to increasingly sophisticated cyber incidents affecting both private companies and public systems.

“The proposed council is envisioned as a non-statutory, multi-stakeholder coordination platform, designed to convene key actors and strengthen partnerships that support efficient coordination, trusted information sharing, and sustained cooperation among institutions responsible for advancing Nigeria’s cybersecurity posture,” the ministry said.

The council will bring together chief information security officers, cybersecurity experts, technology firms, law enforcement agencies, and relevant government institutions.

It will also provide advisory support to the federal government on strategies and frameworks needed to improve national cyber resilience.

“The approach reflects the government’s recognition that modern cyber threats demand collective defence models, trusted threat intelligence sharing, and multi-stakeholder coordination,” the ministry added.

The move follows recent cyber incidents that disrupted operations and highlighted the “increasingly coordinated and sophisticated nature of cyber threats,” signalling the urgent need for stronger national cybersecurity frameworks.

This development comes amid the rising frequency and complexity of cybercrimes, which have made cybersecurity a vital tool that countries must focus on.

Special policies around data breaches, ransomware attacks, and third-party liabilities have come to the fore. While cybersecurity has been historically underutilised in Nigeria, its critical role in mitigating the financial fallout of cybercrimes and threats has taken a new dimension with the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI).

Countries are leveraging AI tools to enhance threat detection, automate incident response, and analyse patterns to identify risks early. These AI-driven solutions enable quick and effective responses, improving resilience by detecting anomalies, predicting potential attacks, and mitigating threats before they escalate.