AI and New Africa (Part III): Where are the opportunities in Africa to transform Africa?
We could comfortably go with the cliché, “opportunities are everywhere.” With quite a lot to do to improve the life of people in Africa, the opportunities to transform Africa could, in fact, be virtually everywhere. There is just a lot to improve at almost every turn. Briefly, some of the areas which we could quickly apply AI technologies to help transform include; Healthcare, Agriculture, Manufacturing, Transportation, Energy, Finance, Commerce, Policy, Infrastructure, and Communication. These are more like the basics though, and we could go on and on since there are just plenty of viable improvements to make life better and more meaningful. Some people opine that wherever there is a need to improve efficiency and do things better, AI could most likely be useful. This is huge! However, for brevity, we would not get to details analyzing some of these right away; we do that in subsequent publications.
Getting Things Done
At this point, we have acknowledged there is a lot needed to get done in Africa. We equally have seen that AI accompanied with big data could be a transformative tool. If history is any indicator, we as a society, for some reasons, do not understand some of these technological developments for what they are; just tools! That is tools to help us get things done or maybe solve problems. Realizing and appreciating this fact could ease some of the complications that could come up when using or applying some of these tech advancements. When we see them for what they are; just tools, we are then better positioned to work from the concept of “how could we best apply these tools to get things done.” That is to say, for solving problems or making things better.
There are lots of advantages that come with having this mindset and using this approach as opposed to seeing tech developments as something too uncanny which we do not understand. With the right mindset, it is easier for us to look at problems from a holistic point of view so we could pick the right tool(s) to help us solve problems efficiently. This helps us analyze these tools for what they are and see if they are fit for the purposes to which we want them applied. Doing so would ensure we are on the right track of proper tool application or combination that could work for us, as against applying technologies in areas where they would not be suitable. Not getting could mean we find if more challenging using the tools to solve the problem(s), or they won’t be of any help at all. However, with better understanding, it is easier for us to explore and apply tools appropriately when there are options and alternatives.
We also need to realize that learning and applying these tools could be challenging especially for new users and those who do not have the relevant background. Well, even those with tech backgrounds may find picking up different or new tech challenging. However, with the right mindset, learning can be more fun and mastering tech applications becomes much easier.
What this implies is that as we prime Africa to be the new Silicone Valley (SV) at scale, we need to find a way to accelerate the learning and application of relevant tools for accelerated developments. Becoming the new SV makes more sense only if we could take advantage of transformative technologies like AI, to achieve goals at the fastest rates possible. We, therefore, make a case for organizations and individuals to use more of this “Problems to Tools” approach rather than the “Tools to Problems” approach which society has sort of become accustomed to, especially in our educational and training systems. We are going to delve more in-depth on this in subsequent publications. In a nutshell, let’s acknowledge the importance of analyzing problems we want to solve, seek to understand the underlying grounds and then execute a data-driven solution using the relevant tool.
The importance of data for AI developments cannot be overemphasized. As we may now be aware, advancements in AI took off big time in recent years due to the massive volume of accumulated data which were made possible by the use of computers and other digital information and communication technologies. In Africa, much like other parts of the world, massive loads of data are being generated on a daily bases. Advancements in internet made it possible to accumulate data in a way that could easily be synchronized to tech developments like AI for more accelerated and real-time processes. Comparing AI developments and data with the combustion engine and oil respectively, the more data we collect, the better AI will become. However, the question is “how do we ensure we continue to make useful data available in Africa?” This is very important for areas like healthcare in which AI is finding increasing applications. While data could be accumulated easily and at times for free, it could also be hard to gather quality and relevant data for some AI developments when they are needed.
To help resolve the challenge of quality and representative data availability, we have come up with Longenesis, which features a personal data marketplace. This makes it easier for developers to acquire information whenever needed quickly. AI developers will not be the only people to benefit from this but also the patients as well the healthcare professionals. Everybody (you and me) could get some form of payment as an immediate incentive for providing useful data for AI developments. For instance, individuals could be encouraged to go carry out blood tests to generate data that will be used for AI developments, which would then be helpful in making healthcare solutions more personalized and better than ever. It is kind of “data monetization” in the interest of all players. We firmly believe that is some of the proper ways to go about helping improve healthcare in Africa and anywhere else.
As we highlighted earlier in this series, we cannot overemphasize the need for an environment that encourages innovation and the development and deployment of talent. This is very important since most of what we do revolve around people getting things done. A lot has been said about many nations in Africa not providing conducive or suitable environments for innovation and entrepreneurship to thrive. We also talk about the educational systems not equipping students with the adequate skills needed for meaningful work. Moreover, we do talk about people not having access to opportunities that harness their knowledge when they leave the educational and training institutions. Although some of these issues are found almost everywhere in the world, we acknowledge that they are significant issues in Africa. However, most of these challenges have been or are being appropriately addressed in many parts of the world, and for Africa, the development and scaling of innovation hubs could be helpful.
Innovation hubs could mean many things for many people, but for our purpose, we look at a system that could encourage research and innovation, provide people with skills and training, and provide innovators and producers the resources and opportunities to do better. This system could flow seamlessly online and offline (possibly with units in various locations) and would most certainly be helpful. Scaling this kind of system could be the whole idea of the new SV we are talking about in this series. We know there is a lot more to these, but at least we have a framework for thinking about some of these innovations.
In any case, transforming Africa into the new SV would entail a lot of liberal thinking and creativity, accelerated productivity and the willingness to explore many options and see what works and what could be optimized and revised. We are optimistic that with the aid of AI we could help accelerate the transformation of Africa into the new SV at an unprecedented scale of progress.
On the next part of this series, we would look at concrete examples of what we are doing especially in the all-important healthcare. I think this would be very interesting for most people. So see you next week on part quatre.
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.
