No excuses about infrastructure, please. A conversation with Ambassador Bitange Ndemo x TechCabal

It was an early start to the day—2 a.m. But it was well worth it to spend some time with Ambassador Bitange Ndemo and hear his frank thoughts on AI and what African entrepreneurs and leaders must do, think, and make work. Here are the takeaways from this morning’s great conversation The Rundown had in partnership with TechCabal, moderated by Tomiwa Aladekomo, CEO, Big Cabal Media.

So much fun at 3am

Transparency Alert:

• We recorded this event with Otter.AI
• We wrote this using Claude III Opus
• We used the Otter AI full transcript to pull key highlights
• We used the Otter AI summary to fill in some gaps that a human (me) noticed were missing
• I’m the final editor of this piece and will make some corrections.

We have the most young people

Ambassador Bitange Ndemo, a seasoned technocrat with over 30 years of experience in business, finance, and technology, emphasized the importance of embracing AI and seizing the opportunities it presents.

Africa should not be thinking about whether or not to adopt AI. Why? We have the most young people. We have the biggest opportunity to actually take over the world with these young people working in various aspects of AI.

Own your datasets

Ndemo emphasizes the importance of Africans developing their own language models and datasets to preserve cultural nuances and tap into the vast potential of local content, such as literature and cultural artifacts, which could generate significant resources and opportunities for the continent.

If we don't do anything as we are talking now, AI is going to bring Western nuances into our languages if we are not able to develop them ourselves to incorporate African nuances in something that we are saying African around culture around other things.

Build our own LLMs

Ndemo suggests that while large language models may seem daunting, they are accessible and achievable for African developers, especially with the simplification brought about by AI. He encourages people to start asking questions, seeking answers, and creating networks across Africa to tackle LLMs. Ndemo believes that by starting small and collaborating, Africa can quickly scale up its efforts in developing and leveraging large language models for the benefit of the continent.

I am 100% sure that in any country you can actually get developers, and nowadays they don't have to do serious coding because AI has simplified coding. What can I do to access AI? How can I be able to solve this problem? And then you you begin to get the answers. You can even go online and create networks across Africa.

No Excuses about infrastructure, please

Ndemo argues that infrastructure and connectivity should not be seen as obstacles to AI development in Africa. He points out that a significant portion of the continent already has access to connectivity, and young people can start working on developing local languages and AI applications in urban areas, gradually expanding to rural areas as investments and customer bases grow. He emphasizes that Africa should not let perceived limitations hold back its progress in AI.

Infrastructure, I will tell you, is an excuse. I was in northern Kenya, and I found Americans developing languages that are about to go extinct. Young people from college trying to do what we've had a group in in in South Africa say they're trying to do.

Get Africa out of poverty

Ndemo highlighted the transformative potential of AI in sectors such as agriculture and healthcare, stating:

We need to get that knowledge to a person who doesn't have a significant amount of knowledge to be able to move themselves out of poverty. That's how we can claim poverty out of Africa. We have a chance to do it

He shared his personal experiences of leveraging AI in agriculture in Kenya, using mobile technology to analyze crop health and developing credit scores with IBM, showcasing the potential of AI to change industries and improve lives.

Invest in research

The Ambassador also stressed the importance of investing in research, building infrastructure, and creating an enabling environment for innovation. He urged governments to "begin in urban areas and slowly move to rural areas" and to "streamline supply chains, agricultural food, and then help these people leverage this space to be able to promote and create intra-African networks."

Ubuntu Ethics

Ambassador Ndemo stressed the significance of developing AI and large language models that integrate African languages, cultures, and perspectives. He highlighted the risk of AI bringing Western nuances into African languages if Africans do not take the lead in developing their own language models. His perspective suggests that AI development in Africa should be rooted in the continent's cultural heritage, languages, and values to ensure that the technology serves the needs and interests of African communities.

Zain highlighted Kenyan researcher Wakanyi Hoffman's concept of Ubuntu ethics, which emphasizes incorporating cultural nuance in AI development, which is a valuable approach. She added AI continues to advance and shape various industries, it is crucial for African innovators and leaders to prioritize the cultural elements and ensure that the technology serves the needs and values of the continent's diverse populations.

The idea there is to make sure that all cultural continents, nuanced continental nuance, oral culture, and storytelling are incorporated across the board across all Gen AI platforms and LLMs.

Tell our story

Amb. Ndemo and Zain highlighted the importance of storytelling in Africa to share experiences and learn from each other. Verjee highlighted the need for African storytellers to embrace AI and use it to ensure we tell our own stories using our own knowledge and data.

Wanja

Verjee shared her own experience of building a retrieval-augmented generation platform called Wanja, demonstrating the value of hands-on learning and experimentation in the AI space. She highlighted the need for discomfort in learning AI, fine-tuning responses for specific company requirements, and using one's own datasets for generation. She gave the example of how to create RAGs for press releases and communications for major companies using internal, private and unique data sets.

Be More Proactive

Tomiwa Aladekomo, the CEO of Big Cabal Media, emphasized the importance of addressing fundamental problems in Africa while also keeping up with emerging technologies like AI. He stressed the need for experimentation and being producers rather than just customers, stating, "We need to be more proactive in building and using our own solutions."

Tomiwa and I agreed at the end that Kenyans were better at AI than Nigerians. And that Ghanaian jollof rice is better.

DUCKING !

JOKING !

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Have a wonderful weekend !