DRC youth push back on digital dependency 🇨🇩

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On August 20, 2026, Silikin Village in Kinshasa hosted the fourth edition of Youth IGF DRC, the local branch of the global Internet Governance Forum. Under the theme « Youth, Digital Sovereignty and Inclusive Governance, » network engineers, regulators, startup founders and students compared notes on the technical state of Congolese digital infrastructure — steering well clear of the usual « digital transformation » talking points.

The real bottleneck: keeping the lights on ⚡

The DRC’s connectivity gap isn’t primarily about missing cables. Operators at the forum pointed out that fibre optic lines already run between major cities — the problem is that the power grid can’t reliably keep relay stations and local data centers running. The fixes on the table were solar hybridization for telecom sites and dedicated micro-grids for rural areas, rather than simply laying more fibre.

Satellite constellations: a stopgap, not a foundation 🛰️

Low-earth-orbit satellite connectivity, delivered through Airtel Africa’s commercial partnership with Starlink, was assessed for what it actually is: a useful bridge into places civil engineering can’t reach. Unlike traditional satellite internet, which requires installing a dedicated kit — dish, router, power supply — this Direct-to-Cell service runs on an ordinary compatible LTE smartphone, no specialised hardware needed. Its real limitation lies elsewhere: shared bandwidth is thin, and usage is currently capped at SMS and low-data apps, WhatsApp included. Participants were clear that this technology complements a fibre backbone — it can’t replace one, not across a country the size of Western Europe.

Compute, data, models: DRC’s sovereign AI challenge 🇨🇩 🤖

The AI conversation was the densest of the day. Several speakers flagged a concrete risk: without local compute capacity (data centers, GPUs), without national data corpora, and without in-house model engineering skills, the DRC would reportedly stay locked into using tools built elsewhere — inheriting the biases and strategic dependencies that come with that. The stakes, as framed at the forum, are no longer about access to AI applications, but about controlling the technical chain that produces them.

System security and data protection: the technical foundations of trust 🔐

ARPTC’s Board President, Christian Katende, was unable to attend and was represented by Riff Ntambwe, the regulator’s Director of Regulation and Legal Affairs, who opened the forum with a call for governance that genuinely includes young people in technical decisions. On the panel dedicated to digital trust, he laid out its component layers: securing networks and information systems, an updated regulatory framework, building services with security and privacy protections from the start of development (« privacy by design »), and vigilance from users themselves against risky online behavior. The forum’s closing recommendations called for strengthening cybersecurity, data science and AI curricula, so that young Congolese design solutions rather than merely consume them.

Next stop: Nairobi 🌍

The forum closed with the announcement of the global IGF 2026, set for December in Nairobi. ARPTC confirmed it will keep up its technical and institutional support for youth-led digital initiatives in the DRC in the months leading up to the event.

Between grid electrification, satellite connectivity and homegrown AI, which technical challenge do you think the DRC needs to tackle first to stop depending on foreign technology? Let us know in the comments.