Veritas University, Abuja, the Catholic University of Nigeria, has established Veritas Enterprise, an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven business initiative designed to tackle poverty, bridge the digital divide and expand access to essential services across Africa.

The initiative, inspired by Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas, which calls on universities to assume greater responsibility in shaping the future of humanity in the age of artificial intelligence, seeks to deploy technology to build sustainable enterprises serving communities excluded from reliable electricity, healthcare, finance, education, housing and markets.

To drive the initiative, the university has constituted a 13-member founding board co-chaired by the Catholic Bishop of Sokoto, Matthew Hassan Kukah, and Professor Bart Nnaji, founder of Geometric Power Group and Professor of Robotics and Computer-Integrated Manufacturing at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The enterprise aims to mobilise Africa’s educational institutions, particularly faith-based universities and tertiary institutions, to equip young people with AI skills, connect them to business opportunities and support the creation of profitable enterprises that address pressing social and economic needs.

According to the initiative’s framework, Veritas Enterprise intends to work through cooperatives, associations, trade unions, educational institutions, government agencies, subnational governments and faith-based organisations to extend its reach to underserved populations.

The first phase will commence in Nigeria before expanding to other African countries.

Speaking on the initiative, Bishop Kukah said technology must remain at the service of humanity, describing Veritas Enterprise as a practical response to Pope Leo XIV’s call for universities to contribute meaningfully to human development in the AI era.

Kukah, founder of The Kukah Centre and convener of Nigeria’s National Peace Committee, also serves on the Vatican’s Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development.

The dicastery coordinates the Vatican’s work on issues relating to integral human development, including emerging technological challenges.

The establishment of Veritas Enterprise comes against the backdrop of growing concerns about whether the rapid advancement of artificial intelligence will deepen existing inequalities or create new opportunities for economic inclusion.

While AI is transforming industries and opening new frontiers in productivity, access to its benefits remains uneven, particularly in communities with limited electricity, digital infrastructure, education and financing.

Veritas Enterprise seeks to address these barriers by combining technology with enterprise development, institutional partnerships and access to markets.

Its operating philosophy is that businesses created to serve disadvantaged communities must also be commercially viable to survive and expand.

The initiative maintains that every enterprise it establishes must generate profit, arguing that businesses that continually depend on external financial support without achieving sustainability cannot provide lasting benefits to the poor.

The model draws inspiration from the Catholic Church’s history of applying social teaching to economic organisation.

Following Pope Leo XIII’s 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum, which addressed the condition of workers and the relationship between labour and capital, Catholic priests and institutions helped establish cooperatives, credit unions and schools to improve the economic and social conditions of working people.

One prominent example was the work of Spanish priest José María Arizmendiarrieta, whose cooperative movement developed into the Mondragon network, a major group of worker-owned enterprises in Spain’s Basque Country.

Veritas Enterprise seeks to extend this tradition into the digital economy by applying AI to enterprise creation, economic coordination and the delivery of essential services.

A key component of the initiative is the University Enterprise Commons, a platform designed to connect tertiary institutions, students and staff with AI training, business development opportunities and support for establishing enterprises.

Through the platform, students and staff will have access to free AI training and certification, alongside opportunities to translate their skills into productive ventures.

The initiative also plans to develop clean-energy solutions, beginning in Nigeria, with the objective of improving access to affordable and reliable electricity before extending the programme to other African countries.

Reliable electricity is considered critical to the initiative’s ambitions because it underpins digital connectivity, healthcare delivery, education, small businesses and other productive activities.

The enterprise’s strategy also places emphasis on mobilising Africa’s extensive faith-based educational network.

Its proponents estimate that about 675 faith-based tertiary institutions across the continent serve approximately three million students. They also point to the wider Catholic education system, which serves more than 71 million learners in about 231,000 schools and universities worldwide, including approximately 82,000 schools in Africa.

By working through these networks, Veritas Enterprise hopes to create a platform for extending digital skills, clean energy, primary healthcare and business opportunities to communities that conventional commercial models may struggle to reach.

The initiative builds on an earlier milestone in the university’s engagement with the global AI debate.

On June 25, 2026, approximately one month after the presentation of Magnifica Humanitas, Veritas University signed the Humanitas AI Compact, becoming, according to the initiative, the first university in the world to do so.

The agreement was signed by the university’s Vice-Chancellor, Rev. Fr. Professor Hyacinth Ichoku, a development microeconomist with experience working with international development institutions, including the World Bank, World Health Organisation, United States Agency for International Development, UK aid programmes and the European Union.

The signing took place before the university’s 154th Senate.
Veritas Enterprise is intended to move beyond declarations on ethical AI by building practical businesses through which the technology can deliver measurable benefits to households, farmers, healthcare providers, young people and other underserved groups.

The Kukah Centre is the principal institutional partner of Humanitas AI, while Professor Emeka Aniagolu, who taught History and Political Economy for 35 years at Ohio Wesleyan University and The Ohio State University in the United States, chairs its steering committee.

The chief executive officer of Veritas Enterprise, Emmanuel Emeka Orjih, said the initiative would translate the commitment to human-centred AI into enterprises capable of delivering tangible economic and social benefits.

Orjih, a Wharton-trained MBA graduate and applied AI strategist, is the founding director of the Centre for AI, Digital Justice and Economic Rights and founder of the Africa AI Fellowship.

A former senior technical adviser to Nigeria’s Minister of Technology, he also has experience with the World Bank and the United States government, alongside two decades of development-finance work across 28 countries.
He said his experience in social entrepreneurship had helped him finance and establish more than 18,000 enterprises.

“The first signing declared that AI must serve humanity,” Orjih said. “This second act builds the enterprises through which that commitment can reach a home, a clinic, a workshop, a farm and a young person seeking productive work.”

Other members of the founding board include Dr Sam Amadi, a former chairman and chief executive officer of the Nigerian Electricity Regulatory Commission and founding chair of the Centre for AI, Digital Justice and Economic Rights.
Amadi, a lawyer and human rights advocate, holds postgraduate qualifications from Harvard University.

The board also includes Oluwatoyin Aralepo, director of Finance for West African Economic and Monetary Union and West Africa at Mastercard Foundation; Akinwande Pearse, a private-sector and finance adviser with the German development agency GIZ; and Michael Ibrahim Magaji, a former senior Citibank executive and regional director at Access Bank.

Other members are Dr Margaret Ejima Akoje, bursar of Veritas University; Valentine C. Amadi, an international AI and technology executive with World Bank experience; Professor Paul Obo Idornigie, Senior Advocate of Nigeria; and Professor Gabriel Bassey Egbe.

Professor Nnaji, who co-chairs the board with Bishop Kukah, brings experience in robotics, manufacturing technology and power-sector development to the initiative.

The university’s ambition is to demonstrate that AI can serve as an instrument of economic participation rather than remain the preserve of technology companies and populations with access to advanced digital infrastructure.

However, the initiative’s broader impact will depend on its ability to translate its institutional partnerships into functioning businesses, secure sustainable financing, expand reliable electricity and digital connectivity, and ensure that the communities it seeks to serve can afford and benefit from the resulting services.

Its phased implementation, beginning in Nigeria before expanding across Africa, is expected to provide an opportunity to test the model’s commercial viability and development impact.

For Veritas University, the central proposition is that the future of AI in Africa should not be measured solely by technological advancement, but also by its capacity to create livelihoods, expand access to essential services and bring economically excluded populations into productive enterprise.