Tony Elumelu Tells What Will Determine Africa’s Productivity In Digital Age

Africa’s productivity in the digital age will rise or fall not on the strength of algorithms or the spread of infrastructure alone, but on how inclusive the continent’s technological future becomes, billionaire investor and philanthropist Tony Elumelu has declared.

Speaking from the standpoint of both capital and conscience, Elumelu argued that technology must ultimately serve people, not replace them, insisting that Africa’s greatest asset in the digital era remains its young population.

“Technology must serve humanity, not replace it,” he stressed, after declaring that “Africa’s productivity story in the digital age will depend not just on algorithms or infrastructure, but on inclusion.”

According to him, giving young Africans the tools, power and opportunity to create prosperity will be the decisive factor in unlocking sustainable growth across the continent.

“Giving every young African the tools, the power, and the opportunity to create prosperity,” the frontline campaigner of shared prosperity in Africa wrote on his social media handle on Tuesday, December 17, 2025.

Elumelu, the founder of Heirs Holdings and chairman of United Bank for Africa (UBA), has long positioned inclusion as central to Africa’s economic transformation. Through the Tony Elumelu Foundation (TEF), he has committed $100 million to identifying, training, mentoring and funding African entrepreneurs, with over 20,000 young people across all 54 African countries already supported. The programme is widely seen as one of the continent’s most ambitious private-sector interventions in youth empowerment.

UBA, which he chairs, is one of the largest employers across Africa, with over 25,000 employees group-wide and serving more than 45 million customers globally.

The underlying message in Elumelu’s position suggests that the digital revolution presents both promise and peril. While technology can accelerate productivity and connect African businesses to global markets, he warns that excluding young people from access to skills, capital and opportunity could deepen inequality and stall progress.

He infers that true productivity comes when innovation is paired with empowerment.

His philosophy of Africapitalism — the belief that Africa’s private sector must drive development through long-term investments that create both economic prosperity and social wealth — underpins this view. By focusing on people as producers, innovators and job creators, the champion of commerce believes Africa can harness technology not as a threat, but as a multiplier of human potential.

As governments and investors continue to build digital infrastructure across the continent, Elumelu’s message is a pointed reminder that cables, code and platforms mean little without deliberate investment in people.

In his telling, Africa’s digital future will be written not just by machines, but by millions of empowered young Africans shaping prosperity on their own terms — much like he is doing through the Tony Elumelu Foundation.