The rise of artificial intelligence is reshaping higher education at unprecedented speed, yet this transformation is far from genderneutral. We recognise a practical predicament: the AI divide is primarily a gender divide. Women remain four times less likely to code than men, and thirteen times less likely to file a technology patent. In the worlds portrayed by AI, including emerging agentic systems, women are more often cast as assistants and caregivers than as leaders or drivers of change. Awareness raising and actions needs to be taken from leadership development to competency development.

UNESCO remains committed to working with all partners towards a gender-equitable transformation of AI in education. It is encouraging that many national AI strategies now make explicit reference to gender equality, and that higher education transformation features prominently in their approaches. Yet policy language alone is not enough. Genuine change should be translated into concrete practice. Gender-disaggregated public reporting should become standard in AIrelated education and research programmes. Ethics modules addressing algorithmic bias and gender discrimination should be embedded in AI curricula, so that teaching itself becomes gender-transformative. Targeted funding and leadership pathways for women in AI should be established, including cross-institutional, cross-border mentorship and exchange networks.

This issue of CLOUD shows this substance taking shape. Across Africa's universities, women are turning access into practice: expanding AI literacy, sustaining peer learning, applying new knowledge in teaching and research, and carrying their voices into institutional and policy conversations. Training opens the door. What follows from access to practice and from participation to leadership, is harder, necessary work. We need more than powerful models. We need powerful commitment, and the patience to build what commitment requires. Technology takes its direction from those it is built to serve.

Women Leading Change is more than the name of a project. It reflects our aspiration for AI and education shaped by the participation of all. This is a journey towards more inclusive and gender-responsive digital transformation that we will continue to pursue.