AI and New Africa (Part II): What are the Challenges to Meaningful Transformation in Africa?
Historically, Africa has demonstrated immense challenges to meaningful developments, and this is a well-acknowledged fact. However, quite interestingly, most of these challenges are now being turned on their heads thanks to recent technological advancements. Some of these perceived challenges are among the things that could help position Africa to indeed become the new Silicon Valley (SV) faster than ever imagined. In many ways, SV grew quickly mainly because there was a need to build revolutionary solutions for some of the rapidly evolving needs in the tech world, especially in the 1980s and 1990s. Aggregating these solutions around SV would enhance efficiency and further drive the growth of tech establishments. Of course, there are a lot other factors such as availability of great schools, accessibility to funds and mentors, in addition to other trends like the “bee-hive effect” (the idea that industrial clustering encourages even more clustering as innovations and companies find it easier to grow around the cluster).
Now most of the infrastructures that support these tech developments, especially the internet, now exist in SV and well outside of SV. Moreover, as SV sort of increasingly matures in many respects, many investors and upcoming startups are looking to establish in other locations. While many of them focus on needs like content, commerce, and communication built on the back of internet developments, there is also this increasing drive to focus on solving other core human needs. These present more opportunities for places like Africa, and as we pointed out earlier in this series, it is mainly down to learning, understanding, innovating, applying and scaling. So SV could be a model in many respects.
While Africa naturally benefits from this internet infrastructure and other tech developments, Africa does also need other varied infrastructures. Some of these are already taken for granted in many developed parts of the world. However, the exciting thing here is that these recent technological advancements could now be helping to accelerate the development of these infrastructures needed in Africa. As a result, projects which took decades to build in most developed parts of the world could now be accomplished in just about months or few years.
Let’s look briefly at some of these challenges to Africa becoming the new SV and how some of them could actually turn out to be blessings this time around, with the adequate application of technology.
Basic Infrastructure
This is among of the most significant areas in which many parts of Africa are lagging in terms of meaningful developments. This could be quite daunting and frustrating, particularly for the ordinary citizen. Many people outside of Africa do not appreciate the struggle it could take to get seemingly simple things done in some parts of the continent. Basic things like electricity, housing, transportation network, healthcare facilities, and food and water supply are grossly inadequate in many parts of Africa. Of course, some countries in Africa are doing much better than others.
However, the fact that most parts of Africa are not yet as advanced when compared to some other parts of the world means that Africa would likely be more open to transformative technologies like the recent AI-enabled innovations. This is because most developed nations are more likely locked into certain ways of doing things and might find it much more difficult to pivot or adapt to new ways of getting things done. On the other hand, Africa could be more flexible and will find it easier to take these transformative technologies and accelerate the transformation into a better new world.
Talent Pool
We cannot overemphasize the importance of talented and skilled people especially in the development and application of technology. The right people are in fact at the center of it all. Many might suggest that Africa may not have adequate tech skills to move tech developments forward. This could be the reality in some aspects but not quite the whole picture. Ordinarily, Africa, as a whole, needs lots of work to be done but most times, issues relating to public policy, inaccessibility to the actual developments and downright stereotyping among other challenges, sort of eclipse many of the developments happening in many areas of the region.
In reality, Africa has a ready workforce that could be readily applied to tech developments such as AI. For instance, some forward thinking and informed leaders in the tech industry like Google, Microsoft and many others including Facebook have recognized this opportunity and are already making significant moves to maximize it. The result would most likely be massive when a good proportion of these potential talents have been appropriately channeled to relevant tech developments and applications, especially those made possible through AI.
Unhelpful Governance and Policies
It is no secret that nations with poor governance and policy-making structures struggle, in contrast to those with mature and responsible systems. Many African countries, for many overt and covert reasons, lag mainly due to the inability of the people to formulate policies that could support and promote meaningful development. However, technological developments are an excellent aid in reversing this scenario. For instance, it is now much easier to monitor policies formulation and implementation. The turnaround time is becoming much shorter so that people will no longer need to wait for ages to see the results of whatever they do in many aspects of governance and policy making. Applications of AI would further make it easier to measure, track and correctly align processes at various levels of society, in our more connected world. While there are much more to these, we are optimistic that AI, coupled to other tech advances, would help ensure things are done correctly.
Pervasive Ideologies and Orientation
For the most part, this is among of the most challenging issues in Africa and seems to be at the root of most of the other inherent challenges. It is not that Africa does not have resources. Africa has enormous resources; human, capital and otherwise. It is also not as if Africans are not talented. Many Africans, especially those outside Africa, have gone ahead to make outstanding contributions in various ways for the betterment of humanity. So why has Africa remained backward in many ways? With the resources and opportunities available to Africa, it is evident that the inability of more the people to apply the right thinking and mindset to life and to whatever we do could be the most debilitating cog in the wheel of African development. However, thankfully, things are changing for the better now. Progress made in areas like communication technology, and educational systems are making it possible for Africans to develop better mindsets and have more access to better ways of thinking and doing things.
Perceptions about AI
The advancement in AI has not come without its fair amount of challenges. As a matter of fact, because of its enormous potentials, AI does come with some significant controversies. These challenges could be technological, ethical, economic and social in nature. For instance, AI has been associated with some risks such as loss of jobs to AI, unethical or improper use and the possibility of AI outsmarting humans, referred to as “AI takeover”. Well, almost every other disruptive technology has had a negative connotation relating to job loss. Computers, cars, tractors and many others were associated with taking jobs away from the people earlier on. AI has been associated with existential risk, with notable people in the tech world cautioning about the dangers that could accompany unregulated developments. However, on the brighter side, many more have expressed optimism about the enormous potential benefits of AI advancement.
Some also think AI is over-hyped. Maybe it is, in some cases but its vast impact on society is undeniable. However, in all respects, it boils down to ensuring we channel AI developments, much like most other things in life, to ways that could be most beneficial to everyone, everywhere.
In spite of whatever challenges that may exist in Africa, it evident that people in Africa have to wake up to the need to redefine and reinvent ourselves. Take a look at some countries like Korea, Taiwan, Singapore, and China. Just 30 years ago, they were significantly below the standard level of the contemporary first world nations, and even some African nations were better off than them. Most of these Asian countries had little food, poor education, difficult languages and other inherent issues. However, they bet on technology, software, semiconductors, and are now dominating these industries. In Africa, we need to learn to do the same and much better.
Moreover, there is now enormous progress in many areas which Africans could capitalize on to advance quickly especially in healthcare. For instance, Europe and America are aging, and many young nations have the potentials to excel in AI proficiency and export many useful products such as longevity-boosting technologies that will be in high demand. The opportunities are just so vast!
Starting from the next part of this series, we would be looking more in-depth at some examples of the opportunities for the transformation of Africa. It’s an exciting time, and we are looking forward to better developments.
Thanks for reading and sharing. So see you next week on part trois.
About the Author
Iraneus Ogu directs the Africa Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain for Healthcare Initiative at Insilico Medicine, Inc. In addition to tech developments, he works on Longevity and Aging Interventions with his research efforts focusing on neuroregeneration. He equally works with the development team at Longenesis.com and also has a background in Pharmaceutical Sciences at the University of Greenwich, where his research focused on controlled-release dosage forms.
