18 July 2025 | The 24th edition of Future States by Apolitical CEO and Co-Founder Robyn Scott. Subscribe to the newsletter

After a pause, I’m delighted to restart this newsletter under a new name and focus — Future States — fit for the turbulent, challenging and exciting era in which we find ourselves.

My goal with this newsletter is to share insights on urgent and frontier issues facing our public institutions. Around the world, these organisations are wrestling with the pressures of advanced technologies, demographic change, climate shocks, multipolarity and governance turmoil.

In my role as CEO of Apolitical, a network and learning platform for government reaching millions of public servants in 170 countries, my hope is that I can bring a unique perspective to your inbox. In recent months, for example, I’ve been part of high level conversations and events on the future of government in Washington DC, Paris, Brussels, Addis Ababa, Abu Dhabi and Geneva. My colleagues, meanwhile, have been in New York City, Doha, Nairobi, Tallin, Singapore, Cape Town and more.

I’m writing Future States with a particular focus on leaders in public sector departments and institutions and their partners. But I hope it will be interesting to anyone who cares about the future of our governments.

AI in Africa: a continent-sized opportunity

A few weeks ago, at the African Union’s Public Service Day in Addis Ababa, I was invited to give a keynote address where I focused on the generational opportunity for Africa to do with AI what it once did with mobile phones and mobile money: leapfrog everyone. Without legacy infrastructure to slow it down, and with pressure to deliver critical public services at extremely low cost, Africa could build agile, high-impact public sector AI from the ground up and lead the world in inclusive AI.

At Apolitical, we know from our global data that public servants in emerging economies are more optimistic about AI than in developed countries. So I expected a positive response. But I was surprised by the levels of enthusiasm: I left the conference with interest in exploring this conversation further from representatives of more than 10 African countries.

Sovereign innovation for African contexts

Leapfrogging on AI is not just an idea on paper. Directly after my speech, I toured Ethiopia’s extraordinary AI Institute. It was founded during the Covid-19 pandemic, before generative AI had entered the public imagination. Today, it has developed so many AI-powered tools for local application that the executives I spoke to had lost count of the total. One tool was developed in response to the poor accuracy of Western and Asian breast cancer detection tools for African women. They told me that, in just six months, it screened 5 million women in four hospitals and pop-up street clinics, with 98% accuracy.

Other applications include:

  • A mobile tool to detect skin diseases in remote communities — enabling local treatment
  • A computer vision model to spot disease on coffee plants, critical for Ethiopia’s economy
  • An internal discipline to build “lightweight” applications that minimise compute costs

This is not Western hand-me-down AI — it’s purpose-built, sovereign innovation designed for local application.

But it’s also largely invisible to others across the continent. In Nigeria, a new Office for Women and Girls is exploring how to use AI to improve women’s and children’s health. When I shared the Ethiopian breast cancer story, they were astonished — and eager to connect.

But the window is closing

A key risk in my view is delay. As AI matures, the ladder of opportunity could be pulled up behind the first movers. If Africa does not act now, it risks facing:

  • A dependency model, where AI is imported rather than shaped or owned
  • Technological marginalisation
  • Premature deindustrialisation, with labour markets disrupted before industrialisation fully takes root

The first AI-driven continent in the world

Africa has the opportunity to become the world’s first AI-first continent, attracting talent and capital while solving its own most wicked problems. At minimum this will require:

  • A continent-wide vision for AI, backed at the highest levels of government, business, academia and philanthropy
  • AI integration across public services, with a focus on health, education, agriculture and justice
  • Support for local AI builders, from startups to state research institutions
  • Guidance and governance frameworks fit for African political and technological realities
  • Knowledge sharing across the Global South — including via public platforms like Apolitical

This isn’t just Africa’s story. The continent’s ability to shape, harness and share public interest AI could benefit other markets facing similar constraints. Emerging markets have an enormous amount to gain and to contribute, but tapping this potential requires ambition, resources and urgency.

Also at Apolitical

June was a busy month for Apolitical. At London Climate Action Week, I was proud to represent Apolitical at an event in Lancaster House, attended by His Majesty the King. Apolitical was announced as a partner to help accelerate action across government, finance and NGOs. I’ll share more soon!

At the UN’s 'AI for Good' Summit in Geneva, I spoke at the launch of the UNICC’s new AI Hub (powered by content from Apolitical!) where I announced our new impact report from the Government AI Campus, Apolitical’s programme to train 1 million public servants to lead in the age of AI. It's full of insights, data and wonderful stories.

In partnership with UNDP, the learning team has developed a course on systems thinking and addressing complex challenges. Given the growing complexity of delivering policy in today’s turbulent world, this course feels like a timely and practical intervention.

Things that made me smarter

Cal Newport on Cognitive Debt: In a recent podcast, the US academic and computer scientist best known for coining the idea of “Deep Work” warns that overuse of generative AI tools like ChatGPT risks degrading our ability to think deeply, not unlike credit card debt for cognition. We support the smart use of AI at Apolitical and in the public sector, but are always vigilant about the risks. This is an important one!

As ever, I welcome your feedback — and your stories. If you’re working on public sector AI anywhere in the world, let me know. Especially if you’re building in ways that others should know about. And if you’d like to guest edit an edition of this newsletter, let us know.

Until next time,

Robyn Scott Apolitical CEO & Co-Founder