Kathy Gibson reports from the AI Everything Summit in Nairobi – Governments in Africa – indeed, around the world – are grappling with how to ensure their countries are able to benefit from artificial intelligence (AI).
But it’s not like the continent hasn’t been confronted with new technology before, and made the decision to embrace it.
Kenya was one of the continent’s earliest and most enthusiastic adopters of global connectivity when the first Seacom undersea cable landed – and that led to the country becoming a continental leader in the mobile revolution, and the world leader in the burgeoning fintech environment.
Professor Dr Bitange Ndemo, Kenya‘s ambassador to Belgium and former ICT permanent secretary in the government of Kenya, explains how the country did this.
Although government didn’t necessarily understand what the new cable would mean, there was a fundamental understanding that it would be important. So the regulations were passed in the belief that innovation would come.
With connectivity available, the next step was to get users on to it. “So we supported young people and helped them buy computers by removing duties for university students,” Dr Ndemo says. “In this way, we got the mass that would drive the industry.
“We landed the cable even though we didn’t know if people were going to use it. But they did.”
The country also grew the ecosystem by extending the cable to neighbouring countries so they could also benefit from better connectivity.
Creating a new industry from scratch was made possible by government stepping back and listening to what people needed.
“Government has to be an enabler,” Dr Ndemo says. “So anyone who came to us with ideas, we did what we could to enable those ideas to succeed.
“When the cable landed, a lot of people were afraid of it,” he adds. “So we enabled training, and adoption was fast. That level of adoption led to today’s success.”
Moving to the AI revolution, Mactar Seck, chief and head : innovation and technology section at UNECA, Ethiopia, says the question is not whether Africa should be involved in AI, but whether it can be a key actor.
For it to be a meaningful player, it needs to ensure that the infrastructure, data and applications are all available.
But there are some big roadblocks that need to be overcome first.
“In order to create the infrastructure capacity, we need to first build out the energy component,” Seck explains. “Today, there are 600-million people on the continent who have no access to electricity; we need to take that into consideration when we are setting up data centres.”
Skills development is also key, along with the requirement for digital regulations and a focus on global governance.
In developing the AI industry, Seck says governments and industries must retain an African focus, with secure and ethical AI applications helping to generate new jobs.
“We need our own AI: an African AI.”
Seck stresses that AI should not be confined to just the technology sector. “Agriculture, finance – these all need to be involved in AI. We need to build capacity so AI can help to build our GDPs.”