AAB College’s AI & Tech Summit brought academics, officials, and technology leaders to Prishtina to examine Kosovo’s place in the global AI economy.

Artificial intelligence is no longer confined to laboratories or Silicon Valley. It is changing how societies learn, work, govern, and communicate. Against that backdrop, AAB College in Prishtina convened the AI & Tech Summit 2026 on September 3 and 4, bringing together academics, officials, researchers, industry leaders, and entrepreneurs to consider one of the defining transformations of the age.

Held under the theme “Shaping the Future of Artificial Intelligence, Digital Transformation and Emerging Technologies,” the summit connected academia, government, and industry around a deceptively difficult question: How can societies capture the benefits of AI without surrendering the public interest to the speed of technological change?

Generative AI, machine learning, intelligent automation, and advanced analytics are reshaping education, public administration, business, research, cybersecurity, and labor markets. These technologies offer extraordinary opportunities, but they are also forcing institutions to reconsider how knowledge is produced, how decisions are made, and how societies should respond to systems evolving faster than governments and universities can absorb.

Rather than treating AI as merely another technological advance, participants examined it as a social, educational, economic, and institutional upheaval. The summit’s central premise was that technological progress cannot be separated from human responsibility. The future of AI will depend on more than algorithms and digital infrastructure. It will also depend on the quality of education, the strength of public institutions, the principles guiding innovation, and societies’ ability to ensure that technology serves people rather than the other way around.

That placed higher education near the center of the conversation. Universities are entering a period of fundamental change as AI alters teaching, learning, research, assessment, and academic practice. They are increasingly expected not simply to prepare students to use new tools, but to give them the intellectual grounding to evaluate and responsibly develop those tools. The graduates best equipped for an AI-driven economy will need technical proficiency alongside critical thinking, creativity, communication skills, ethical judgment, and adaptability.

Participants considered how universities can respond to generative AI while protecting academic integrity, encouraging creativity, strengthening digital literacy, and preserving the human dimension of education. The task is not simply to police technology use. It is to redesign teaching and assessment for a world in which students can summon sophisticated machine-generated text, images, analysis, and code in seconds. Experts also addressed the construction of trustworthy AI models and the challenge of turning data into reliable decisions, underscoring the role universities can play in scrutinizing the accuracy, explainability, and accountability of intelligent systems.

Public policy formed another major strand of the program. Governments are experimenting with AI-enabled public services, automated decision-making, and integrated digital administration. But introducing such systems into public institutions raises questions software alone cannot solve. Cybersecurity, privacy, transparency, due process, and public trust must be central to technological development, especially when automated tools affect citizens’ rights or access to essential services.

The relationship between regulation and innovation was therefore a recurring theme. Governments must establish rules for rapidly developing technologies without smothering useful experimentation. The debate is often framed as a contest between technological freedom and bureaucratic restraint, but the real choices are more complicated. Economic competitiveness, public safety, fundamental rights, and institutional legitimacy all depend on regulatory systems that can keep pace.

For Kosovo, those questions carry particular weight. The country is working to modernize public administration, strengthen digital services, improve interoperability, and develop a more citizen-oriented government. The summit provided a forum to consider Kosovo’s digital agenda alongside international expertise and broader European developments.

Small states face a distinctive version of the AI challenge. They rarely possess the computing infrastructure, research budgets, or venture-capital networks concentrated in the world’s major technology powers. Yet their size can also make them more agile. Public institutions can sometimes test digital services more quickly, universities can build cross-border partnerships, and young companies can reach international markets without first constructing a vast domestic customer base.

Kosovo’s opportunity lies in converting that flexibility into an advantage while avoiding dependence on technologies whose workings, data practices, and strategic consequences it cannot meaningfully scrutinize. That will require more than declarations of enthusiasm. Education systems must decide which skills deserve investment. Governments must determine what public data can safely be used and who remains accountable when automated systems fail. Universities must resist chasing every technological fashion and instead cultivate durable capabilities in research, ethics, engineering, and critical inquiry.

The summit’s international character was reflected in experts from Kosovo, Germany, the United Kingdom, Israel, Hungary, and Turkey. Academic contributors included Dr. Karsten Löw of Schmalkalden University; Dr. Naim Bajçinca of the Rheinland-Pfälzische Technische Universität Kaiserslautern-Landau; Dr. Arnon Hershkovitz of Tel Aviv University; Dr. Faruk Bulut of the University of Essex; Dr. Vas György of Károli Gáspár University; Dr. Murat Gök of Yalova University; and Dr. Muhammed Kürşad Uçar of Sakarya University.

Fatos Ismali, chief AI architect at Microsoft in the United Kingdom, brought an industry perspective, while Esmeralda Kazia, named Cybersecurity Woman of the World 2026 and chief technology officer at KESH sh.a., contributed expertise on critical infrastructure and national resilience. Acting Prime Minister Albin Kurti spoke at the opening alongside Mimoza Kusari-Lila, Minister of Industry, Entrepreneurship, Trade, and Innovation. Other government participants included Hajrulla Çeku, minister of education, science, technology, and innovation, and Lulëzon Jagxhiu, minister of digitalization and public administration.

One of the gathering’s most significant moments was AAB College’s conferral of an honorary doctorate on Rudolf Scharping. As Germany’s federal minister of defense from 1998 to 2002, Scharping played a direct role in his country’s response to the Kosovo crisis and in the international security effort. The distinction connected a conference focused on the future with Kosovo’s recent past. Scharping later delivered a keynote address on the opportunities and risks AI presents for geopolitics.

The summit also examined AI’s effect on entrepreneurship. The technology is changing business models, creating opportunities for start-ups, and influencing investment, company valuation, and financing. For emerging digital economies, the challenge is not merely to generate promising ideas but to connect local talent with international capital, expertise, and markets.

The range of voices reflected a basic reality: no single sector can shape the future of technology alone. Researchers generate knowledge, universities educate talent, governments establish safeguards, industry turns ideas into products, and entrepreneurs convert possibilities into economic opportunities. The quality of their interaction will help determine whether AI produces durable public value or merely another cycle of disruption.

That collaboration is especially important for Kosovo and the wider Western Balkans. AI presents an opportunity to cultivate internationally competitive talent, support entrepreneurship, accelerate innovation, and connect local businesses with global markets. Realizing that potential, however, will require sustained investment in education, research, infrastructure, cybersecurity, digital governance, and human capital.

Cybersecurity was an essential part of the discussion. As governments, companies, and citizens grow more dependent on digital systems, the resilience of those systems becomes central to economic development, public trust, and institutional stability. The program connected network protection with national preparedness, sound data governance, infrastructure security, and the continuity of essential services.

For AAB College, hosting the summit also underscored the role of contemporary higher education. Universities are increasingly expected to function not only as centers of teaching, but also as centers of research, innovation, entrepreneurship, international cooperation, and informed public debate. By bringing scholars, policymakers, technology professionals, entrepreneurs, and students together in Prishtina, the college sought to strengthen Kosovo’s connections with wider academic and technology communities.

The Western Balkans is experiencing rapid technological and economic change while navigating European integration, demographic pressures, and the development of new industries. AI could help the region participate more fully in the global digital economy, but only if it becomes a producer of knowledge and technology rather than merely a consumer of systems designed elsewhere.

A considerable gap remains between aspiration and execution. The region continues to contend with outward migration, uneven investment, limited research funding, and institutions that do not always move at the speed demanded by technological change. AI will not erase those constraints; in some cases, it may intensify them by rewarding economies that already possess abundant capital, data, and computing power. The credible case for optimism rests not on technology as a shortcut, but on its use as part of a longer strategy to strengthen education, governance, entrepreneurship, and regional cooperation.

The summit’s practical elements supported that goal. Start-ups and emerging technology companies presented ideas, while workshops, demonstrations, and exhibitions connected research and policy with experimentation, investment, and real-world problem-solving. Organizers also sought to stimulate academic partnerships, collaborative research, student and staff exchanges, university-industry cooperation, and international research networks.

Ultimately, the summit’s value will not be measured by attendance figures or the prominence of individual speakers. Its impact will depend on the relationships it sustains, the research it generates, and the opportunities it creates for the next generation.

Artificial intelligence remains in its early stages, and the technologies discussed in Prishtina will continue to evolve faster than many institutions can predict or regulate. The societies most likely to thrive will not necessarily be those that adopt the most technology. They will be those best able to understand its implications, manage its risks, distribute its benefits, and direct its power toward meaningful human goals.

For two days in September, Prishtina hosted that international conversation. The harder work—turning regional ambition into lasting technological capacity—began when the summit ended.