Just days after its official launch, the Kenya National Cohort of the Commonwealth Student Community for AI Governance has made a substantive contribution to Kenya’s national AI policy process.

On 11 August 2026, the Cohort submitted a memorandum to the Cabinet Secretary, Ministry of Information, Communications and the Digital Economy, presenting student recommendations and suggestions on the Draft Kenya Artificial Intelligence and Other Emerging Technologies Policy. The submission was collectively endorsed by more than 22 student members from diverse disciplinary backgrounds and tertiary institutions across Kenya.

The submission reflects one of the first collective actions of the Kenya National Cohort following its launch on 6 August 2026. More importantly, it demonstrates the potential of the Commonwealth Student Community for AI Governance: enabling students to move beyond discussions and contribute their perspectives to ongoing national processes shaping the development and governance of AI.

In the memorandum, the students welcomed the Government of Kenya’s initiative to establish a unified national framework for artificial intelligence and other emerging technologies. The students proposed, among other measures, targeted funding for student-led research, youth enterprises and incubation, with attention to equitable access for institutions in underserved regions; student-friendly intellectual property guidelines to support the commercialisation of campus-based innovations; and a National Academic AI Compute Hub to provide academic researchers with access to compute infrastructure, datasets and specialised software.

The recommendations also called for practical and ethics-anchored AI education across universities and TVET institutions; a dedicated student/youth representative on the proposed National AI and Emerging Technologies Council; institutional guidelines for the responsible use of generative AI in tertiary education, including channels for addressing algorithmic errors, privacy violations and unfair automated assessments; rural-first Digital and AI Access Hubs across the country; and structured AI apprenticeship and upskilling programmes for graduating students facing an AI-driven labour market.

This submission marks an important early step for the Kenya National Cohort, bringing together student perspectives from across disciplines to engage directly with an ongoing national conversation on how AI and other emerging technologies should be developed and governed in Kenya.