HP and UpSkill Universe Launch Free AI Training for 55,000 African SMEs

September 5, 2026
Africa, AI, Business, Business Literacy, Economy, Education, Nigeria, SMEs, Tech

Artificial intelligence is rapidly moving beyond the world of major technology companies, global corporations and venture-backed startups. Now, one of Africa’s most important economic groups, small and medium-sized businesses, is becoming the focus of a major AI skills push.

On September 3, 2026, HP and UpSkill Universe announced the launch of the AI Skills for Business Programme, an initiative designed to provide 55,000 SMEs in Nigeria and South Africa with free, practical artificial intelligence training.

Powered by HP LIFE, the HP Foundation’s free global training platform, and delivered by UpSkill Universe, the programme is designed to help business owners move beyond just hearing about AI and begin applying it to everyday business challenges. Increasingly, the problem facing African businesses is knowing how to turn AI knowledge into practical business results.

The AI Skills Gap Behind the Programme

Artificial intelligence adoption across Africa is increasing, but awareness does not necessarily translate into meaningful implementation.

According to figures cited by the programme partners, nearly 70% of SMEs remain at the early stages of AI maturity, while only 9% have embedded AI into their day-to-day operations, strategy and decision-making.

For many small businesses, AI can appear complicated, expensive or disconnected from their immediate needs. Yet businesses can potentially use AI to improve areas such as reporting, decision-making, risk management, customer experience and operational efficiency, and rather than treating AI as an abstract technological concept, the initiative is designed to help entrepreneurs understand where AI can fit into their existing businesses and how they can begin testing AI-powered tools in real-world situations.

The AI Skills for Business Programme is a free AI skills development initiative targeting SMEs in Nigeria and South Africa. The central goal is to help 55,000 small and medium-sized businesses develop practical AI capabilities that can support business growth and improve everyday operations.

The initiative will combine self-paced online learning with live facilitator-led sessions and a more intensive AI business bootcamp. This structure means that participants are simply being given access to educational material. The programme is designed to create a progression from learning to experimentation to implementation.

That makes the initiative particularly interesting for entrepreneurs who may have heard about generative AI and other emerging technologies but have not yet figured out how to incorporate them into their businesses.

55,000 SMEs Will Begin With HP LIFE

The first stage of the programme will involve bringing on board 55,000 SMEs onto HP LIFE. Participating businesses are expected to complete at least three courses, providing a foundation for AI skills development at scale.

HP LIFE is the HP Foundation‘s free business and digital skills training platform. According to the programme information, the platform provides more than 30 free courses in eight languages and is available online, through partners and through its mobile application.

The emphasis, however, is not simply on accumulating course certificates. The programme’s broader objective is to help SMEs demonstrate that they can actually apply AI skills within their businesses. The second stage takes a smaller group of businesses beyond self-paced learning. Approximately 5,000 SMEs will participate in live, 90-minute facilitator-led virtual sessions based on HP LIFE’s training content. These sessions are designed around real business challenges rather than purely theoretical AI concepts.

One particularly practical component is that participating SMEs are expected to identify a specific AI tool to test within their businesses within 30 days. Instead of finishing an AI course and returning to business as usual, entrepreneurs will be encouraged to ask a more practical question: Where can I actually use this technology in my business?

That could potentially involve applications related to reporting, customer experience, operational processes, decision-making or other business functions addressed by the programme. The programme information does not prescribe one specific AI tool for every participant; rather, businesses are expected to identify an appropriate tool for their circumstances.

The Top 50 SMEs Will Enter an AI Business Bootcamp

The most intensive part of the programme will be reserved for the 50 top-performing SMEs. These businesses will be selected for the Build Your Business with AI Bootcamp, which is designed to help participants optimise their operations using AI.

The bootcamp will combine business audits, guided mentorship and 90-day AI action plans. The programme also states that the bootcamp aims to increase participants’ AI confidence by 50% and help each business implement at least one AI-driven process.

HP employees will serve as mentors to support the participating businesses as they work through their 90-day AI action plans. This mentorship element could be particularly valuable because one of the biggest barriers to AI adoption is not necessarily access to AI tools but the ability to understand how those tools fit into a company’s existing workflow.

Youth and Women-Led Businesses Get Priority

The initiative also contains an inclusion component, Youth-led and women-led businesses will receive priority access, with the programme targeting 40% participation from these groups.

This is significant because access to emerging technologies can become uneven when training opportunities are concentrated among already-established businesses or entrepreneurs with greater financial and technical resources.

By deliberately prioritising youth and women-led businesses, the programme is attempting to widen participation in Africa’s growing AI economy. The available programme information, however, does not provide a country-by-country breakdown of how that 40% target will be divided between Nigeria and South Africa.

Gori Yahaya, Founder and CEO of UpSkill Universe, said the programme was created to address the practical skills and confidence gap among African small businesses.

“Small businesses across Nigeria and South Africa already have the ambition to deploy AI in their day-to-day operations.

What they lack is access to quality training tailored to their needs and guidance on how to deploy it consistently.”

Gori Yahaya

Yahaya explained that the partnership with HP is now moving toward a stronger focus on measurable business impact.

He said the programme was designed to “move our engagement from reach to impact” by giving 55,000 business owners free, practical AI skills that they can apply from day one. He also described AI as an important driver of Africa’s next wave of business growth and said the partnership is intended to ensure that small businesses participate in that transformation rather than being left behind.

Yesh Surjoodeen, Managing Director for Southern and Central Africa at HP, on his own account, emphasised that providing technology by itself does not guarantee successful adoption.

“Business owners need the practical skills, confidence, and support to turn technology into opportunity.”

Yesh Surjoodeen

He added that the AI-focused programme is designed to help SMEs apply what they learn to everyday business challenges, improve customer service and pursue sustainable growth. The broader ambition, according to HP, is for small businesses to become active drivers of Africa’s AI transformation, rather than simply observers of it.

The Programme Builds on a Previous SME Initiative

The 2026 AI programme is not HP and UpSkill Universe’s first collaboration. It builds on the previous Skills for Business Programme, which was delivered through a partnership involving HP, Google and UpSkill Universe.

That earlier initiative reached more than 40,000 SMEs, according to the organisations and reports covering the new programme. The new programme represents a significant shift in emphasis. While the previous initiative focused more broadly on digital business capabilities, the 2026 programme places artificial intelligence at the centre of the curriculum and business application process.

This makes the latest initiative more targeted at the current challenge facing SMEs: not simply becoming digitally connected, but learning how to use increasingly powerful AI tools productively.

Why Nigeria And South Africa Are Major Parts of the Story And Central to the Initiative

For Nigeria and South Africa, the programme arrives at an important moment in the country’s digital transformation.

Nigerian SMEs operate across sectors ranging from retail and professional services to manufacturing, agriculture, logistics, financial services and creative industries. AI could potentially help businesses automate repetitive tasks, analyse information, improve customer communication, generate content, support decision-making and increase operational efficiency.

However, the programme’s figures indicate that awareness and actual integration remain significantly different. The fact that Nigerian SMEs form part of a 55,000-business AI training target therefore makes the initiative particularly relevant to the country’s growing technology and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

South Africa, on the other hand, has a substantial SME ecosystem and an increasingly active digital economy.

By placing Nigeria and South Africa together within the same programme, HP and UpSkill Universe are effectively creating a cross-market AI skills initiative focused on two of Africa’s major economies.

The programme’s stated ambition is not merely to expose entrepreneurs to artificial intelligence but to help businesses use AI in practical areas such as decision-making, reporting, risk management, customer experience and operational optimisation.

Registration Is Open

Registration for the AI Skills for Business Programme is currently open.

SMEs in Nigeria and South Africa can register through the HP LIFE platform at the programme’s designated registration page, life-global.org/go/upskill

The programme information says that live virtual sessions will begin in September 2026, while the first intensive bootcamp is scheduled for January 2027.

This creates a clear timeline from initial enrolment and self-paced learning to live training and eventually the intensive implementation stage.

Conclusion

Africa’s AI conversation has often been dominated by major technology companies, governments, AI startups, research institutions and large corporations. But SMEs represent an enormous part of everyday economic activity.

If AI adoption remains concentrated among large companies, the benefits of the technology could become increasingly uneven.

If smaller businesses can acquire the knowledge, confidence and practical support required to use AI responsibly and effectively, the technology could become a much more powerful productivity tool across the wider economy.

That is why the HP and UpSkill Universe AI Skills for Business Programme deserves attention.

Its most compelling proposition is not simply that 55,000 SMEs will learn about artificial intelligence. It is that those businesses are being encouraged to test AI tools, solve real business problems and convert new skills into practical processes. That represents a much more ambitious approach to digital skills development.

HP and UpSkill Universe‘s decision to target 55,000 SMEs across Nigeria and South Africa is one of the more significant recent private-sector efforts to accelerate practical AI adoption among African small businesses.

The programme comes at an important time where AI awareness is growing rapidly, yet the reported gap between awareness and everyday business adoption remains substantial, with nearly 70% of SMEs described as being at early stages of AI maturity and only 9% having integrated AI into daily operations, strategy and decision-making.

By providing free training through HP LIFE, followed by live practical sessions, AI tool experimentation, business audits, mentorship and 90-day implementation plans, the initiative is attempting to tackle that gap from multiple angles.

And as artificial intelligence continues to reshape the global business landscape, the most important question may no longer be whether African SMEs will encounter AI. It may be how quickly they can learn to use it effectively, responsibly and profitably.

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