Data Sovereignty & Building Up Africa’s AI Ecosystem
In this fourth episode of a special series of the Embedded podcast, host Zain Verjee speaks with Kate Kallot about building the fundamental data infrastructure needed for Africa's AI revolution. As the founder and CEO of Amini AI, Kallot shares her journey to being one of the continent's leading AI innovators, and explains how her company is addressing the critical data scarcity that has historically hindered development across Africa. This conversation explores the challenges of breaking data silos between African nations, ensuring data sovereignty, and creating accessible pathways for women in AI. Recorded at the Global AI Summit on Africa in partnership with The Rwanda Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution, this episode provides insight into how purpose-built African data systems can transform sectors from agriculture to finance while ensuring that AI benefits are equitably distributed.
Kate Kallot
Kate Kallot is the Founder and CEO of Amini, a Nairobi-based startup building data infrastructure for Africa and the Global South to regenerate natural capital at scale. Named one of TIME's 100 Most Influential People in AI in 2023 and a Young World Entrepreneur of the Year in 2024, she currently serves as Vice Chair of the International Chamber of Commerce Global Environmental and Energy Commission and is a member of EY's Global AI Advisory Council. Before founding Amini in 2022, Kate held leadership positions at global tech companies including NVIDIA, where she led global developer relations and expansion into emerging markets, and Arm, where she was instrumental in the Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML) movement. At Intel, she led the development of the world's first AI development kit in a USB form factor, the Neural Compute Stick, bringing computer vision and AI to IoT and edge devices for millions of users. Kate views AI as a pivotal technology that can either perpetuate colonial patterns of dependence or become a mechanism for sovereignty and inclusive prosperity in the Global South. Her work focuses on making environmental data accessible and actionable to empower communities at the forefront of climate change while building local AI capacity.