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Credit: Davos Alzheimer's Collaborative
The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative (DAC), a global initiative to prevent Alzheimer’s disease and promote brain health, today announced a collaboration with the Science for Africa Foundation (SFA Foundation) to advance brain health innovation across the African continent. The initiative will convene the Data.Digital.AI for Brain Health Across Africa roundtable series to explore how artificial intelligence, data and digital solutions can transform prevention, diagnosis and care for dementia and related brain health conditions.
The effort aligns with the priorities of the South African-led G20 Health Working Group, placing health equity and security at the top of the global agenda, and highlighting artificial intelligence as a tool to strengthen health systems and support frontline workers. Further, this partnership positions Africa to lead in AI-driven health innovation, offering a model for tackling disparities through smarter collaboration.
Research by the SFA Foundation, spanning 43 countries, underscores both the promise of AI in genomics, diagnostics and pandemic preparedness, and the need for transparent rules to ensure that technologies narrow, rather than widen, inequalities. To anchor the work in African perspectives, DAC and the SFA Foundation have launched a stakeholder survey to identify opportunities, challenges and priorities. These insights will guide the AI roundtables and directly inform the action plan to be presented at the G20 Brain Health convening on November 4, 2025, where DAC and the SFA Foundation will serve as co-conveners.
DAC Executive Vice President Dr. Vaibhav Narayan said, “AI holds transformative potential for brain health. From improving early detection and diagnosis to enabling scalable caregiver support tools, AI can help bridge gaps in access and resources, as well as extend expert care to remote communities, offer continuous monitoring, and deliver personalized interventions that reduce caregiver burden.”
“AI presents us with a significant opportunity to advance brain health across Africa. However, this potential can only be achieved if governance frameworks are designed to reflect our continent’s context and priorities. It is therefore imperative that Africa’s AI future in brain health be shaped by regionally led, locally grounded frameworks that respect our realities, empower vulnerable populations, build trust, and ensure ethical and equitable use of data. Only by centering African voices and collaboration can we drive inclusive and effective solutions that truly strengthen our health systems,” said SFA Foundation program lead, policy engagement, Uzma Alam.
To underscore the importance of this work, Dr. Adewale M. Aderemi, director, democratic studies, National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies (NILDS), emphasized the transformative potential of AI for Africa: “AI is a very crucial, timeous and possibly game-changing intervention for Africa in several sectors. It holds the potential to blur the burgeoning technological gap between Africa and the rest of the world and make the continent better integrated and more competitive. In mental health particularly, AI deployment will not only dramatically obliterate some of Africa’s well-documented healthcare challenges but will be capable of nurturing its healthy, youthful social capital and thereby boost productivity. I hope this is apparent to the political class across the continent and that we find the political will to prioritize this as a policy matter.”
The Data.Digital.AI for Brain Health Across Africa roundtable series is part of the Africa Task Force on Brain Health, recently published in Nature Medicine. The workstream is being advanced in partnership with the SFA Foundation collaborator, Research Enterprise Systems (RES), an Africa–based hub that supports the secure, ethical and equitable use of digital research infrastructure to drive this effort.
The workstream is led by African experts and organized through a multisectoral structure. The Task Force brings together leaders from the continent’s regional economic blocks to design regionally responsive action. This effort will culminate in a comprehensive action plan at the G20 Brain Health convening in November, positioning Africa’s leadership in AI-driven brain health innovation as central to the global agenda.
The Davos Alzheimer’s Collaborative is a global, multi-stakeholder partnership dedicated to advancing brain health and building an innovation ecosystem that accelerates breakthroughs, develops and scales promising solutions, and equips every healthcare system to end Alzheimer’s disease everywhere. Launched at the World Economic Forum, DAC unites leaders from research, industry, government and patient advocacy to speed the discovery, development and delivery of new treatments.
The SFA Foundation is a pan-African, non-profit and public charity organization that supports, strengthens and promotes science and innovation in Africa. The SFA Foundation serves the African research ecosystem by funding excellent ideas in research and innovation, enabling interdisciplinary collaborations, and building and reinforcing environments that are conducive for scientists to thrive and produce quality research that generates new, locally relevant knowledge.
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