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2nd QUARTER 2020 ZAR25 | US$2.50 | Euro1.60
The Voice of African AI & Data Science RPA Leader Blue Prism Opens SA Office
AI EXPO AFRICA 2020 GOES VIRTUAL WITH DIGITAL TWIN EVENT
10 WAYS AI’S LEADING THE FIGHT AGAINST COVID-19
AWS Continues African Investment & Launches South African Region
NIGERIAN GENOMICS START-UP 54GENE RAISES $15M IN SERIES-A T h e AI in He a lt hca re Is s ue
GOOGLE LAUNCHES AFRICAN LANGUAGE NLP
New SA Data Centres Could bring Surge In Cloud-based AI Services
Cape Town and the Western Cape Tech Capital of Africa We are a region of unlimited potential. And this translates into unlimited opportunity for those in tech. We have a world-class digital ecosystem, where resources and talent meet commercial and social opportunity. We are a region that sees digital disruption as less of a thing and more as a way of doing things. Our destination is a place with an interconnected business landscape, offering access to a shared economy, powered by tech-savvy investors. Our city is full of talented and highly skilled people, where opportunities to grow and make a global difference abound. We also have an unfair share of natural beauty. So it’s no surprise that global tech companies choose our destination to have headquarters, as a springboard into growing markets, and as a place to work and play. Wesgro, the official tourism, trade and investment promotion agency for Cape Town and the Western Cape, can help you uncover these opportunities in the tech space.
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CONTENTS 2nd QUARTER 2020
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RPA pioneer Blue Prism opens local offi in Cape Town AWS Launches Region in South Africa Continuing our investment in Africa: Introducing the AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region $3500 in cash prizes on offe in Zaio’s #DevJam 2020 Nigerian genomics research startup 54gene raises $15m Series-A from Adjuvant Capital $1.5m seed round for Nigerian identity verificatio startup Youverify Google releases NLP systems benchmark which covers Kiswahili, Yoruba Kenyan medtech startup Tambua Health receives $150k seed investment Zindi crowdsources COVID19 solutions through virtual hackathons Nigerian startup Voyance launches fraud monitoring platform for fintech AgVentures secures investment in agritech solutions Ugandan fintec XENO raises $150k pre-seed round Gradely receives investment from early-stage investor Microtraction Tectra Automation to introduce automation platform which reduces engineering times 50% Complete the Africa-focused 4IR Buyer’s Survey World-Class Speakers Lined-Up for AI Expo Africa 2020 SA’s EYEBRAINGYM - The “next level” in visual intelligence and literature development Kenyan healthtech Afya Rekod’s medical data storage platform My Future Work launches 4IR Masterclass How will COVID-19 pandemic impact Africa’s AI and Data Science Sector? African Drone and Data Academy Graduates First Students 10 ways AI is leading the figh against COVID-19 Virtual mentoring platform Notitia to launches in Ghana COVID-19 is SPEEDING up digital economy in Africa Cracking Machine Learning To Speed Up Client Service Making sense of Recruitment Tech New Data Centres in South Africa bring about Surge in Cloud-based AI Services The Essence of Artificia Intelligence in Africa Lockdown exposes realities of remote working Sila Health, AI-powered Health-focused platform used in 51 Countries How to talk AI like an Expert Cirrus AI to improve African AI Research and Application Ashanti AI - Meet the faces of South African AI Why Atlas AI’s $7-Million Series-A Matters to Africa The story behind one of the firs French-SA deals signed at AI Expo Africa Q&A: ‘Lack of experience major challenge in South African AI & Data Science scene, not talent’ How BACE API helps businesses figh against COVID-19 What is the big deal about People Analytics? E4 appoints Fikile Sibiya as new CIO The FFR Project & AI Research in Africa FINTECH Circle’s The AI Book 4IR Demands reskilling Workforce African academics Launch initiative to collate COVID-19 Data Building AI for Success AI and Coronavirus Policies: Impact on the Economically Vulnerable Making data Intelligent can be easy Frontier Technologies are Key Tools to combat Climate Change Advertise in Synapse Magazine - Africa’s only AI & Data Science Mag
0 ept 202 -3&4S 0 2 oths, 0 2 frica ive eBo A t c o a p r x e E t AI with In each. ference phical R n a o r C g o & e Expo frican G Virtual reater A G d 32 Day n a rved. nalytics dy Rese a e lr A Show A s eBooth Now@! 60% of eBooth e iv t c a ur Inter Book yo
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Daniel Mpala Deputy Editor: News & Media
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As we come to grips with the COVID-19 pandemic, it’s becoming apparent that Fourth Industrial (4IR) technologies like AI and Machine Learning could not only help us come up with a vaccine but could also shape the post-COVID-19 world. This issue will feature some of the work being done by African experts in AI, Data Science and Machine Learning (ML) in combating the disease, as well as the AI and MLpowered innovations being used in Africa’s health sector. We also look at what impact the COVID-19 pandemic will likely have on Africa’s 4IR tech sector, with a special focus on its AI and data science scene. Check out our feature on Cirrus AI for a glimpse into what the initiative has been up to and how it is looking to accelerate AI research and innovation in Africa. Passionate about economic development on the continent? Check out our feature on Atlas AI and learn how the US startup is using remote sensing and AI to provide economic and agricultural forecasts in Africa. We hope you’ll enjoy reading this edition.
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“SINCE OUR last edition we are all now faced with the new paradigm shift to online as the battle with COVID19 and the challenges this presents us with. We are very pleased to announce that in response and to eliminate risk, we have taken AI Expo Africa ONLINE this year and with 60% of our sponsorships allocated we are seeing great demand. The move to online for 2020 also means we extend our reach and its going to be a bigger event and we look forward to welcoming readers of Synapse from across the Globe !! Join Africa’s largest 4IR trade community and don’t forget to subscribe to our magazine and social media feeds. Tickets for the show are on sale now. Please join us as we take the largest African AI/4IR learning and trade event online - see www.aiexpoafrica.com for details”..
WHILE THE current global pandemic disrupts all facets of our lives, in the form of the ultimate pressure test for businesses, we can foresee that marketing and networking opportunities - the driver of much brand awareness and sales pipeline activity - will dry up substantially in the near future. Businesses and their employees will - rightly so - be risk-averse to face-to-face meetings and business activities, which is why we at AI Media are excited about the Digital Twin’ of our successful real-world AI Expo event as we move to a virtual show with interactive booths, analytics and many other exciting features like an extended event that will live on for a month after ‘Live Show’. This new event format provides an excellent opportunity for the African AI Community to do business, network and showcase their services and products to our C-Suite Buyers Network across all business sectors.
Join the Digital Exchange community Everyoneʼs talking about AI and the smart solutions that make what we do every day even easier. Whether itʼs using Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to identify risk, analyzing digital images via computer vision or simply delivering standout customer experiences faster and without error, staying competitive in business today meeans having the right technology at your fingertips. Welcome to the Digital Exchange community – a professional marketplace for consuming and sharing AI technology thatʼs driving greater operational agility and improved business results.
Ready to join the Digital Exchange community? Visit today at: digitalExchange.BluePrism.com …or learn more about how to empower your people with Blue Prism RPA at BluePrism.com
About Blue Prism As the pioneer, innovator and market leader in Robotic Process Automation (RPA), Blue Prism delivers the world’s most successful Digital Workforce. The company’s intelligent digital workers provide business leaders with new operational capacity and intelligent skills to automate mission critical business processes, while meeting the requirements of the most demanding IT environments, where security, compliance and scalability are paramount. Blue Prism provides a scalable and robust execution platform for best-of-breed AI and cognitive technologies and has emerged as the trusted and secure RPA platform of choice for the Fortune 500. For more information visit www.blueprism.com BluePrism.com
RPA PIONEER
Blue Prism opens local office in Cape Town Robotic Process Automation (RPA) pioneer and market leader UK firm Blue Prism has opened a local office in Cape Town, formalising its presence in South Africa where it has been working since 2016
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THE FIRM develops digital workforces for enterprise – which are available in the cloud, on-premise or as integrated Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution – which automate complex end-to-end processes that drive digital transformation. Speaking on the sidelines of Blue Prism’s launch event held in Cape Town on 12 March, Blue Prism CEO EMEA Brian Mort said the company does a lot of business in South Africa, making it the best place for the firm to be based in on the continent. He pointed out that the company’s customers and partners in the country include PwC, IBM, Accenture, E&Y as well as Cape Town based firms DigiBlu and Clevva. Blue Prism’s other clients include Old Mutual, Nedbank and the First Rand Group. “We’ve had customers here (in South Africa) for a long time now. With over 30 large customers in the region, arguably we should have been here a little while ago but it’s a good time now because our customers are
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growing fast, the adoption of this technology and this industry space is multi-billion size and it’s only growing 100% year-on-year really over the next two or three years,” said Mort. Mort pointed out that the company – which was founded by two former Barclays Bank employees in 2001 – has grown 100% year-on-year in the last five years, growing from about 200 employees to over 1 000 in the last 18 months. “We serve customers in a 140 different countries in virtually every industry. The dominant ones are banking, finance, insurance, telco markets – that would probably make up about 40% of all of our global turnovers, but every other industry as well, including medical and certainly in South Africa mining is another big area for us,” he added. Most big companies in the world, he said, have adopted some kind of automation strategy, with many currently going through their first phase before they grow.
Left to right, Blue Prism executives Brian Mort, CEO EMEA; Greg Newton, Country Manager for SA & Christopher Banks, Customer Success Director Intelligent Automation RPA
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Greg Newton, Blue Prism country manager for South Africa, said the firm’s strongest vertical is currently in financial services, which he said isn’t a surprise given that the firm grew out of a bank. “Our first customer was a bank, Barclays Bank in the UK, and so the Blue Prism platform was designed from first principles to be fit for a Tier-1 bank – so security, auditability, scalability, governance – all of those types of things were designed upfront and it sits in a data centre, not in a desktop. “That foundation is there, and while that makes us very strong in the banking world – because that is a fundamental part of what they need – everyone else cares about security, auditability and controls as well,” said Newton. Newton said Blue Prism’s biggest South African clients are Nedbank and Old Mutual. He added that while the company has strengths in the financial services – because of its history – that has given it a “really good springboard” into many other industries.
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“We see especially here telco is another very strong area, also the mines, resources, we’ve got Exxaro, who are a great customer of ours here, but then what we are really talking about is large enterprises with loads of data and loads of legacy systems – that’s where Blue Prism really sits very well,” he added. Newton said having an office in South Africa gives Blue Prism a “very good” launchpad to support clients in other regions of the continent. Blue Prism’s opening of a local office in the country is also set to encourage innovation and knowledgesharing around the field of RPA through the firm’s Digital Exchange (DX) which the firm established last year. The online platform offers pre-built AI, cognitive and advanced RPA technologies which are applicable to Blue Prism process automation. ai
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“Strongest vertical is in financial services”
In South Africa there’s been an amazing growth and strategy already because the skills, the talent on the ground is here, the big banks, the big insurers and so forth have their own skilled workforces and have augmented these with a robotic strategy for delivery and implantation, - Brian Mort, Blue Prism CEO EMEA.
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“In South Africa there’s been an amazing growth and strategy already because the skills, the talent on the ground is here, the big banks, the big insurers and so forth have their own skilled workforces and have augmented these with a robotic strategy for delivery and implantation. “They’ve moved very fast into the second and third phase of growth. So it’s a very exciting time for us in the markets here,” said Mort.
AWS Launches Region in South Africa
Amazon Web Services (AWS) on 22 April announced the opening of the AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region. With this launch, AWS now spans 73 Availability Zones within 23 geographic regions around the world, and has announced plans for 12 more Availability Zones across four more AWS Regions in Indonesia, Italy, Japan, and Spain.
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AWS EXPLAINED in a statement that the launch enables developers, startups, and enterprises, as well as government, education, and non-profit organisations to run their applications and serve end-users in Africa with even lower latency and leverage advanced AWS technologies to drive innovation. “The cloud is positively transforming lives and businesses across Africa and we are honored to be a part of that transformation,” said Peter DeSantis, Senior Vice President of Global Infrastructure and Customer Support, Amazon Web Services. “We have a long history in South Africa and have been working to support the growth of the local technology community for over 15 years. In that time, builders, developers, entrepreneurs, and organisations have asked us to bring an AWS Region to Africa and today we are answering these requests by opening the Cape Town Region. “We look forward to seeing the creativity and innovation that will result from African organisations building in the cloud,” added DeSantis. The AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region has three Availability Zones. AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones, which each comprise of one or more data centres and are located in separate and distinct geographic locations with enough distance to significantly reduce the risk of a single event impacting business continuity, yet near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected via redundant, ultra-lowlatency networking. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault-tolerance. Like all AWS infrastructure regions around the world, the Availability Zones in the Cape Town Region are equipped with back-up power to ensure continuous and reliable power availability to maintain operations during electrical failures and load shedding in the country. AWS infrastructure regions meet the highest levels of
The new AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region expands cloud pioneer’s global footprint, enabling customers to run applications and store their content in data centres in South Africa
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security, compliance, and data protection. With the new region, customers with data residency requirements, and those looking to comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), can now store their content in South Africa with the assurance that they retain complete ownership of their data and it will not move unless they choose to move it.
AWS continues to invest in Africa
The AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region adds to Amazon’s ongoing investment in South Africa. Amazon first established a presence in Cape Town, setting up a Development Centre in 2004, to build pioneering technologies focused on networking, nextgeneration software for customer support, the technology behind Amazon EC2, and much more. In 2015, Amazon expanded its presence in the country, opening an AWS office in Johannesburg, with significant and growing teams of account managers, business development managers, customer services representatives, partner managers, professional services consultants, solutions architects, technical account managers, and many more to help customers of all sizes as they move to the cloud. In 2017, the Amazon Global Network expanded to Africa through AWS Direct Connect, and in 2018, Amazon established its first infrastructure on the African continent, launching Amazon CloudFront locations in Johannesburg and Cape Town, South Africa, followed in 2020 by an edge location in Nairobi, Kenya. For developers and businesses looking to access the AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region, a full list of services and details on pricing is available here ai
CONTINUING OUR
investment in Africa
Introducing the AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region
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With this new AWS infrastructure region, developers, enterprises, startups, NonGovernmental Organisations (NGOs), education institutions, and governments can leverage the benefits of AWS to start their own businesses, drive innovation, build new products and services, and help citizens across Africa.
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enterprises, startups, Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs), education institutions, and governments can leverage the benefits of AWS to start their own businesses, drive innovation, build new products and services, and help citizens across Africa. At this time, we have a number of customers in Africa who are doing courageous things, at the forefront of the COVID-19 fight. They are helping to provide life-saving information and resources, modelling data and delivering analytics to governments, ensuring millions of students continue to get the education they deserve, and connecting citizens with healthcare providers – demonstrating firsthand the power of cloud computing. For example, to help with remote learning, virtual schooling provider Top Dog Education is allowing millions of school children to continue with their education, through the CambriLearn and MyTopDog learning platforms, running on AWS. Learners have access to e-lessons, study material, accredited tutors, and interactive material – helping them keep learning and engaged during these challenging times. To help companies in stay in business during “shelter in place” guidance, Accenture has developed a COVID call center offer for enterprises, offering Amazon Chime, Amazon Connect, Amazon WorkDocs, and Amazon WorkSpaces services to help businesses stay connected from anywhere, on any device, and respond to customer requests. This is giving call centres and customer support operations across South Africa the ability to quickly spin up environments so their agents can safely work from home. Speed, and the ability to quickly deploy technology resources, has been essential to help communities operate during the COVID shutdown in South Africa. Using AWS, COVID Connect, a volunteer group of local developers, was able to spin up and deploy a website on AWS in three days, where hospitals and clinics with a shortage of food, water, or medical supplies can be quickly connected with people and organisations that have surplus of these materials. Also, AWS Partner Network partner iOCO was able to launch a website for the Solidarity Fund in just two days. The Solidarity Fund collects donations that will help South Africa’s national health response to COVID-19, contribute to research to detect and understand the magnitude of the disease, and support those whose lives have been disrupted by the pandemic. Continued on page 8
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WHETHER IT is supporting the medical relief effort, advancing scientific research, spinning up remote learning programs, or standing-up remote working platforms, we have seen how providing access to scalable, dependable, and highly secure computing power is vital to keep organisations moving forward. This is why, on the 22nd of April, we announced the opening of the AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region. An AWS Region in Africa will enable businesses and government organisations, including those focused on fighting the effects of COVID-19, to build cloud applications and store their data locally, while reaching end users across Africa with even lower latency. AWS Regions are composed of Availability Zones, each of which comprise one or more data centres and are located in separate and distinct geographic locations with enough distance to significantly reduce the risk of a single event impacting business continuity, yet near enough to provide low latency for high availability applications. Each Availability Zone has independent power, cooling, and physical security and is connected via redundant, ultralow-latency networking. AWS customers focused on high availability can design their applications to run in multiple Availability Zones to achieve even greater fault-tolerance. AWS infrastructure regions meet the highest levels of security, compliance, and data protection. Local customers with data residency requirements, and those looking to comply with the Protection of Personal Information Act (POPIA), can also now store their content in South Africa with the assurance that they retain complete ownership of their data and it will not move unless they choose to move it. With this new AWS infrastructure region, developers,
By Werner Vogels, CTO and VP of Amazon
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As COVID-19 has disrupted life as we know it, I have been inspired by the stories of organisations around the world using AWS in very important ways to help combat the virus and its impact.
$3500 IN CASH
pri es on offer in Zaio’s #DevJam 2020
Zaio, a Cape Town-based startup looking to bridge the gap between education and the industry has launched #DevJam2020, a challenge that aims to find the best developer team in the world. #DevJam is first of its kind coding “Gameshow” to find the best developer team in the world. The challenge will see teams of up to two developers hack their way through a series of challenges over a six-week period, with each week providing more obstacles than the last. The #Devjam 2020 challenge will kick-off with 64 teams around the world that will go head to head to create a solution that has been given to them at the start of the week. The teams will have five days to complete the solution. The solutions will then be compared with one another with the better solution winning the round, this while the losing team is eliminated from the challenge. The team with the better solution wins the round and moves along into the next week where they face their next opponents. Each week, exactly half the teams will be eliminated until the winning team at the end of the six-week challenge takes home the championship title and a $2500 prize. Besides the $2500 grand prize, the challenge also includes a $500 People’s Choice Award. In addition, teams with the best
solution each week will win $100 in cash. In addition, AI Media Group will also be sponsoring five AI Expo Africa 2020 tickets. Challenge participants will be restricted to using MongoDB, ExpressJS, ReactJS, NodeJS and Firebase. Solutions in any other languages or stacks will be disqualified. ai
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Continuing our investment in Africa AWS
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Continued from page 7 In just three days, another APN partner, A2D24, was able to develop and deploy an automated digital communications platform for a private hospital group, to inform anyone who has been in one of their hospitals of possible exposure to a confirmed COVID 19 patient. The system automatically sends an alert message and conducts an SMS based triage where, each day, patients are asked questions about the type of symptoms they are experiencing and, based on the responses, recommends what to do, and whether to seek further medical help. This application has helped to provide critical care to thousands of patients and staff across the country, and potentially prevent many new infections. Elsewhere in the healthcare space, organisations have been using cloud technologies to speed up research into COVID-19 and help educate people across Africa. Hyrax Biosciences, a South African company known for its contributions to HIV drug-resistance testing, has released a software tool to detect mutations in the genome of SARSCoV-2, the coronavirus responsible for COVID-19. Using AWS, they have developed the Exatype SARS-CoV-2 platform, which tracks the evolution of the virus as it spreads, and have been able to reduce the time spent analyzing datasets from days or weeks to hours or minutes. To educate citizens on measures to take in order to stop the spread of COVID-19 or quickly find medical help when they fall
ill, GovChat, South Africa’s largest citizen engagement platform, launched a COVID-19 application in less than 2 weeks on AWS. The application provides health advice and recommendations on whether to take a test for COVID-19, information on the nearest COVID-19 testing facility, the ability to receive test results, and the ability for citizens to report COVID-19 symptoms for themselves, their family, or household members. We have also seen more innovative ways to educate and inform people during this time. A good example is the work Digitata Networks is doing in Malawi. Using AWS, they have developed a mobile-based COVID-19 information portal and game that tests and enhances people’s knowledge of the virus. The game is freely accessible and users are given multi-choice questions on COVID-related topics to help test and grow their knowledge of the virus, how it is transmitted, and when to seek medical attention. The game was built in less than five days and now serves more than 2.8 million requests per day. Learning more about how our customers and partners are doing inspirational things at this uncertain time leads us to believe the future for Africa is bright. We have been in South Africa for over 15 years and continue to invest in jobs, community support, and technology infrastructure. The AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region will open countless opportunities for organisations of all sizes, and we look forward to seeing the inspiring innovations that will come from our customers in Africa over the coming weeks, months, and years. ai
Contact Lenore Kerrigan | Country Sales Director South Africa | mobile: +27 83 212 4452 | e-mail: Lenore.Kerrigan@uipath.com
NIGERIAN GENOMICS RESEARCH startup 54gene raises $15m Series-A from Adjuvant Capital Genomics research startup 54gene in April raised a $15-million Series-A funding round led by US life sciences investment firm Adjuvant Capital, a life sciences fund backed by the International Finance Corporation, Novartis, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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This funding comes at a historically meaningful
time, allowing us to deliver global impact through continued investment in research and strategic partnerships with leaders
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- Dr Abasi Ene-Obong, CEO 54gene.
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THE INVESTMENT will allow the company to scale operations in support of generating novel insights from human genetics research that result in high impact discoveries for improving human health through therapeutic development. The investment will also be used to accelerate discovery capabilities by bolstering operations in genetics, bioinformatics, preclinical, clinical and commercial programmes. Other investors who participated in the round include Raba Capital, V8 Capital, and Ingressive Capital, with follow on investment from Y Combinator, Better Ventures, Fifty Years,KdT Ventures, Aera VC and Pioneer Fund. 54gene was founded in 2019 by CEO Dr Abasi EneObong with the aim of including under-represented African genomic data in research which could lead to medical breakthroughs and new healthcare solutions worldwide.
As of 2018, less than 3% of the data used in Genomewide Association Studies [GWAS] was of African ancestry and currently, less than 1% of global drug discovery occurs on the African continent. 54gene aims to improve the development, availability and efficacy of medical products that will prove beneficial to Africans and the wider global population. 54gene currently works with more than 300 researchers, clinicians and geneticists across the continent to improve the global collective knowledge of genomic determinants of health and to facilitate translational research. The company has also built an African Biobank, a stateof-the-art bio-repository which stores biological samples to provide access to aggregated, de-identified data and bio-specimen mainly for secondary use by researchers, to support both academic and development research.
Dr Abasi Ene-Obong, CEO 54gene
Nigeria COVID-19 Testing Suppor Fund
In March, the startup launched a Nigeria COVID-19 testing support fund by donating $150 000 and securing $350 000 from partners that included Nigeria’s Union Bank. At the time, 54gene said in a statement on its website that the combined sum of $500 000 would increase COVID-19 testing capacity in Nigeria by up to 1 000 additional tests a day by buying testing instruments and biosafety materials such as biosafety cabinets and personal protective equipment that is needed to keep front-line healthcare workers safe. The startup explained that the equipment will be installed in public hospitals and laboratories across Nigeria and will remain in place once the current COVID-19 pandemic subsides, to be used by medical researchers and clinicians in case of any future outbreaks. In addition, 54gene said there would also be significant investment in providing training and support to medical professionals, personnel and volunteers working in coronavirus testing sites across the country, ensuring the mass roll-out of effective and robust testing for tens of thousands more Nigerians. ai
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In July 2019, the startup – which has offices in Lagos and San Francisco – raised a $4.5-million seed round from a group of investors who included Better Ventures, Fifty Years, Hack VC, KdT Ventures, Techammer and Y Combinator. At the time, Dr Ene-Obong told Forbes that 54gene’s vision was to become a global force in the healthcare market and that the startup would invest heavily in building data science capabilities which would enable it to find its own targets and provide the pharmaceutical industry with access to African genetic data. As part of its next stage of growth, the company will further explore partnerships and opportunities for co-development of drug targets and therapeutics, and expects to partner with pharmaceutical, medical device and diagnostic companies for clinical programmes in Africa, which will be led by 54gene’s newly appointed Vice President of Clinical & Regulatory Affairs, Kemi Williams, who was formerly Head of Clinical Affairs for Siemens Healthineers US molecular diagnostics business, and previously worked at Roche, Abbott and Medtronic. In addition to its Series A raise, 54gene also announced the formation of its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB). The SAB is composed of global leaders in clinical genetics, bioinformatics and data science; Michael F. Murray MD, Director of Clinical Operations, Center for Genomic Health Professor Dept of Genetics, Yale School of Medicine, Manuel Rivas PhD, Assistant Professor at Stanford University, Greg Hinkle PhD, VP Research Informatics, Alnylam Pharmaceuticals and Jeff Hammerbacher, Founder and General Partner, Related Sciences. Ene-Obong said the new partnership marks a significant evolution in the growth of the company. “In the coming months we will be focusing on building a genomic resource that we hope will add significantly to global
health, while also translating to the health benefits of patients in Africa. We will also be expanding our collaborations in Africa with both public and private stakeholders and investing in setting up a state-of-the-art research lab with high-throughput genetic processing and BSL 3 capabilities in Nigeria, and ensuring that we build some of our innovative pipelines on the African continent,” he added. “This funding comes at a historically meaningful time, allowing us to deliver global impact through continued investment in research and strategic partnerships with leaders in the biomedical industry. We want to support the crucial work of our partners in Africa while improving global health and are committed to promoting a safe, ethical and beneficial research practice,” said Ene-Obong.
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Vision to become global force in healthcare market
ORANGE DIGITAL VENTURES
leads $1.5m seed round in Nigerian identity verification startup Youverify Orange Digital Ventures announced in March that it had led a $1.5-million seed investment round in Lagos-based identity verification startup Youverify, making it the fifth company to join Orange group’s African investment initiative. YOUVERIFY WAS founded in 2017 by CEO Gbenga Odegbami. The regtech startup primarily serves financial and telecommunication service providers who it helps to automate identity and background verification processes. Youverify uses artificial intelligence (AI) to confirm a user’s identity document and compare it with their facial biometrics. The startup says this information can be cross-checked against more than 300 databases locally and globally. The firm claims on its LinkedIn page that, in partnership with over 20,000 field verification officers, it can verify physical addresses all over SubSahara Africa in less than 48 hours. The startup has also developed a single API for identity and physical address verification and says it has since its launch in 2018 performed more than 300 000 customer registrations and verifications for some of Nigeria’s largest banks and financial companies. The investment will be used to improve the startup’s
technology and to accelerate business development in Nigeria and across the continent. “This constitutes a unique opportunity for us to take further our ambition to simplify and secure our client’s internal processes, whether in the recruitment of staff, customer onboarding etc. Our ambition is to be the leading African player in verifying people and companies’ identities by making data protection and security the core of our proposal,” said Odegbami. “Matters of security and access to financial or telecommunications services should never be at odds with each other. Telecom operators like Orange are at the forefront of these transformational challenges. We are proud to support Youverify, which intends to resolve this triple objective of fostering financial inclusion, strengthening security and preserving user rights over their data,” said Grégoire de Padirac, Investment Manager at ODV. ai
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GOOGLE RELEASES NLP
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systems benchmark which covers Kiswahili, Yoruba
Google in April released XTREME – a natural language learning (NLP) systems benchmark – which covers 40 typologically diverse languages (spanning 12 language families), including Swahili and Yoruba.
XTREME ALSO includes nine tasks that collectively require reasoning about different levels of syntax or semantics. Google AI said in a blog post that the languages in XTREME are selected to maximise language diversity, coverage in existing tasks, and availability of training data. The code and data, including examples for running various baselines, is available here The tasks included in XTREME cover a range of paradigms, including sentence classification, structured prediction, sentence retrieval and question answering. Consequently, in order for models to be successful on the XTREME benchmarks, they must learn representations that
generalise to many standard cross-lingual transfer settings. Each of the tasks covers a subset of the 40 languages. To obtain additional data in the low-resource languages used for analyses in XTREME, the test sets of two representative tasks, natural language inference (XNLI) and question answering (XQuAD), were automatically translated from English to the remaining languages. Google says the models using the translated test sets for these tasks have exhibited performance comparable to that achieved using human-labelled test sets. Learn more about the XTREME benchmark from this Google AI blogpost ai
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KENYAN MEDTECH STARTUP
Tambua Health receives 1 0k
seed investment from Y Combinator Nairobi-based medtech startup Tambua Health in March received a $150 000 seed investment from US-based Y Combinator after it participated in the accelerator’s three month programme.
TAMBUA HEALTH was one of 13 African-focused startups that participated in Y Combinator’s W20 batch. Tambua Health was founded in 2017 by CEO Lewis Wanjohi, (pictured above) chief machine learning engineer Eric Kirima and CTO Daniel Gathigai. The medtech company uses lung sound analysis to help doctors detect respiratory diseases using machine learning, artificial intelligence and spectral analysis. Doctors collect patient symptoms, risk factors and
vitals and the Tambua Health app – which can be used offline – combines this information with analysis from data taken by a digital stethoscope to give the doctor a probability of a patient having a specific respiratory disease. As of 2019 there were 216 healthcare facilities using the medtech startup’s solution in Kenya. Watch this video to learn how Tambua Health’s solution works: https://youtu.be/uGYJuOyIvzs ai
A key driver of customer satisfaction one platform for multi-channel messaging
2ND QUARTER 2020
The way today’s customers interact with brands is fundamentally shifting. We are moving from the digital era to the conversational era. Customers find, compare, and buy on their mobile phones. This is exactly why instant-messaging apps have become the norm for both personal and professional communication.
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THE INTERCONNECTED digital world has made contact with customers easier, which has resulted in consumers demanding instant service and immediate results. A salesforce research study showed that 64% of consumers expect companies to respond to and interact with them in realtime, while 80% said that an immediate response to a request influences their loyalty to a brand. To solve problems they are experiencing with a company’s service or product, consumers have turned away from phone calls and embraced chat platforms. To address this, contact centres need to adapt to offer their customers platforms that boast instant and efficient customer engagement. The conversational era requires businesses to optimise
their engagement with customers across a wide range of messaging channels. Where pricing and solutions are similar, the key distinguishing factor will be quality customer service.
Multi-channel platforms
If your company require automation of the interaction process, CM.com can set up a chatbot in collaboration with our business partners This bot can respond to frequently asked questions or pass customers through the authentication process without the need for human intervention. This could help your customer service team save time which could be better spent on addressing more complicated requests. This is especially valuable when agents are required to respond timeously to flurries of extra-ordinary queries in unusual circumstances, such as the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. Chatbots can help take the strain off inundated customer service teams, so that they are able to provide quick and helpful responses during times of crisis. Improve customer satisfaction and loyalty, and ultimately accelerate revenue conversion. Get started with Customer Contact and get your first month free. Once registered, we’ll arrange a demo of Customer Contact with you. ai
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ZINDI CROWDSOURCES
COVID19 solutions through virtual hackathons
African data science competition platform Zindi has released the first of its machine learning solutions to help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The solution, a model that can predict air pollution levels using satellite data, comes from Zindi’s virtual hackathon series #ZindiWeekendz.
2ND QUARTER 2020
SPONSORED BY Microsoft, #ZindiWeekendz is a series of virtual hackathons running every weekend throughout the months of April and May, specifically focused on the health, social, and economic impacts of COVID-19. All solutions will be shared on GitHub and are freely available for government, academic and private sector actors to use in their battle against COVID-19. “In a time when many university students across Africa and the world cannot attend lectures or even leave their homes, #ZindiWeekendz aims to put those passionate hearts and sharp minds to good use building innovative machine learning solutions to the problems of COVID-19,” says Celina Lee, CEO of Zindi. During #ZindiWeekendz, data scientists build practical solutions to some of the public health and economic challenges Africa and the world face as a result of the COVID-19 crisis. Since the beginning of April, Zindi has hosted
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challenges to map the households in South Africa most vulnerable to COVID-19, to predict air quality from satellite imagery, and to build a model that can identify whether a person in an image is wearing a face mask. Every solution that comes out of these challenges is freely available for anyone wanting to put them to use, and Zindi will also be making its own efforts to get these models used by various organisations. Future #ZindiWeekendz challenges will continue to explore ways that data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence can improve social, economic, and health outcomes of COVID-19. Zindi will continue to work with governments, companies, and non-profit organisations to make sure these solutions end up in the hands of those who need them most. If you’re interested in helping Zindi make a difference, you can join the next #ZindiWeekendz hackathon or suggest a relevant data set. ai
NIGERIAN DATA SCIENCE startup Voyance launches fraud
monitoring platform for fintechs
Lagos-based data science startup Voyance has launched Sigma, fraud monitoring platform for fintechs. THE FRAUD graph database platform aggregates data from fintechs within Africa, starting with Nigeria, to block known fraudsters. Voyance co-founder, Abdulhamid Hassan explained in a post on Medium that the startup had built the platform “for the good of the ecosystem”. Hassan pointed out that there’s currently no way for companies to block known fraudsters from their platform which he said results in a high amount of chargebacks and monetary losses for fintech companies. “80% of fraudulent transactions are performed by the same fraudsters. A fraudster can use the same identifiers (card, BVN, phone number) fraudulently with different companies because these companies are usually not aware of the status of that user as a fraudster and that’s why, this is critical,” said Hassan.
How does it work?
Sigma is essentially a database of historically fraudulent users operated by an industry alliance. “The purpose of this is to collect and share profiles of bad actors,” said Hassan. Companies in the alliance can submit known fraudster identifiers, and other information, which will enable others in the alliance to lookup an identifier in the graph database. Voyance says all data submitted to the graph database is anonymised. In a scenario where a fintech within the alliance inputs fraudulent user identifier data like BVN, phone number and IP address. The fraudster will then be automatically blocked from other fintechs within the alliance. New identifiers for flagged fraudsters are automatically updated to their profiles, keeping the graph database up-to-date. ai
AgVentures secures R100m commitment for investment in agritech solutions
2ND QUARTER 2020
Cape Town based agrifood tech investment firm AgVentures announced in May that it raised an anchor commitment of R100-million from South African group Acorn Agri & Food for investment in disruptive technologies with the potential to transform the African agrifood sector.
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AGVENTURES, WHICH was founded by Gerhard Visagie and Michael Prinsloo, invests in early-stage agrifood technologies in South Africa, Israel and Kenya. The firm also assists in the rollout of these transformative technologies across Africa. Visagie, commenting in a statement in May, pointed out that we are at the start of an agrifood tech revolution in Africa which will, over time, disrupt many legacy business models. AgVentures believes advancement in enabling technologies such as mobile connectivity, smart sensors, cloud storage and computing, AI and data science is driving the opportunity for transformative agrifood technologies. According to a report by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Co-operation and Dalberg Advisors, the African agritech sector has over 33 million users and has grown at over 44% p.a. over the last three years. In South Africa, Accenture estimates that the agricultural sector is one of the top two sectors with the highest potential to benefit from digital transformation. “AgVentures aims to be at the forefront of these foundational changes in an industry that is in dire need of
transformation,” says Prinsloo. AgVentures says it is actively pursuing agrifood technologies that fundamentally alter the status quo while addressing real customer needs. The business should be scalable and capital light, with competent founders who possess deep industry experience. These technologies may include digital platforms, farm management software, data analytics and AI, biotechnology, robotics and drones, smart irrigation, innovative animal production and health, food waste reduction, innovative food technology, safety and traceability systems, and sustainable packaging. ai
UGANDAN FINTECH XENO RAISES
1 0 pre-seed round from Nordic Impact Funds
XENO, a Ugandan fintech startup that has developed an AI-powered platform that provides goal-based investment by helping clients to plan, save and invest for their financial goals has raised a $150 000 pre-seed round from East Africa-focused impact investor Nordic Impact Funds
THE INVESTMENT brings the total amount raised by the startup, which was founded in 2016 by CEO Aéko Ongodia, to $430 000. The fintech claims on its website that its Xeno Algorithm, which intelligently maps user risk tolerance to a suitable investment portfolio, is one of the first of its kind in Africa. The startup’s algorithm determines investor risk profile from information on a user’s personality, experience with investing, financial situation and financial goals and time horizon. XENO then invests the money across four asset classes, namely money markets, bonds, domestic and regional equities using its four unit trust funds; XENO Uganda Money Market Fund, XENO Uganda Bond Fund, XENO UGANDA Domestic Equity Fund, and XENO Uganda Regional Equity Fund in partnership with KCB Bank Uganda Ltd as trustees, and Stanbic Bank Uganda Ltd as the custodian. XENO has managed client funds via its website in Uganda since 2017. Having recently partnered with MTN Uganda, XENO has made professional investment advice and management available to anyone looking to invest as little as UGX 10,000 ($3.70) via USSD. This means that without connecting to the internet, all the 11 million customers of MTN Uganda can effortlessly set up an investment account, choose a financial goal, deposit funds, and monitor the growth of their investments. ai
NIGERIAN EDTECH STARTUP Gradely receives 2 k investment
2ND QUARTER 2020
from early-stage investor Microtraction
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Gradely, a Nigerian edtech startup that uses artificial intelligence to help schools and parents intervene in real-time in students learning gaps, in April received a $25 000 venture capital investment from Lagos-based early-stage investor Microtraction in exchange for seven percent equity.
THE STARTUP’S adaptive learning platform helps parents and schools to identify student learning gaps quickly and recommends specific ways to close those gaps. Through the deployment of personalised homework as well as other periodic tests taken by kids, teachers, and parents, Gradely is able to recommend a course of action as well as products and services to buy. The platform enables students to take tests assigned by teachers or parents, practice questions, view performance feedback, and access tutor video sessions. In addition, it also provides parents with feedback about their child’s progress, while enabling schools – that ordinarily do not have enough insights to make informed decisions – access
to this data in real-time. The startup was founded in 2019 by CEO Boye Oshinaga, CTO Femi Ibiwoye, growth lead Seyi Adelaju, and product lead Babatunde Caleb. The founding team has combined experience across fintech, edtech, digital media and machine learning. At the time it announced the investment, Microtraction said Gradely’s platform was being used by 69 schools to digitise homework for students. The early-stage investor added that the edtech startup, which also offers online tutoring, has since launch curated over 4500 Math practice questions and more than 80 video lessons for the West African Senior Certificate Examination (WASSCE) and International General Certificate of Secondary Education (IGCSE) curricula. Continued on page 33
TECTRA AUTOMATION TO INTRODUCE
automation platform which reduces engineering time & effort by 30 to 50% in SA later this year Bosch Rexroth South Africa Group company Tectra Automation will later this year introduce ctrlx Automation, a new open automation platform which reduces engineering time and effort by between 30% and 50%.
2ND QUARTER 2020
BOSCH REXROTH said in a statement in March that through the platform, which it described as the “most open” automation platform on the market, the firm has eradicated the traditional boundaries between machine control systems, IT and the Internet of Things. Centralised and decentralised automation topologies can now be created flexibly with the scalable platform. Thanks to a Linux real-time operating system, open standards, app programming technology, web-based engineering and a comprehensive IoT connection, ctrlX AUTOMATION reduces the engineering time and effort by 30 to 50%, the company said. Nowadays, mechanical engineering is software development. The new ctrlX AUTOMATION platform is Bosch Rexroth’s answer to this market requirement. The platform encompasses the latest engineering software technologies and all PLC and motion tasks. Software functions are combinable in any number of ways with ready-made, customised and customisable apps. These apps can be created in a variety of programming languages such as C++, script languages such as Python, or new graphical languages such as Blockly. This gives machine manufacturers new-found freedom, said Bosch Rexroth. The company pointed out that ctrlX AUTOMATION offers users a choice: they decide whether to program in IEC 61131, PLCopen or G-Code, or in conventional high-level or internet languages. This, it said, liberates machine manufacturers from
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dependency on the availability of PLC specialists and proprietary systems. Configuration and commissioning of the automation components is completely web-based, eliminating the need to install software. Within minutes of switching the system on, the software is programmed. A completely virtual ctrlX AUTOMATION system environment is available, enabling programming without hardware. System functionalities can be extended at any time via the user’s own process functions, apps, and open source software. In total, ctrlX AUTOMATION cuts the engineering time and effort by 30 to 50%, which significantly reduces time to market for new machines. Bosch Rexroth pointed out that more than 30 direct connection options and communication standards offer maximum networking flexibility for economical end-to-end connectivity from field level up to the cloud. ctrlX AUTOMATION is also equipped for future communication standards such as TSN and 5G, making it the best system on the market in terms of networking capability. The company said ctrlX AUTOMATION is based on a new generation of multicore processors which provide sufficient processing power for almost all automation tasks. These highperformance CPUs can be integrated into embedded PCs and industrial PCs or directly into drives. The all-new hardware and software module will cover all automation tasks – from simple control applications and IoT solutions to high-performance motion control. ai
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AFRICA-FOCUSED 4IR BUYER Africa-focused IR Buyer Survey to Gauge Industry Needs
2ND QUARTER 2020
The AI Media Group – organisers of Africa’s largest trade-focused AI trade show, AI Expo Africa – has launched an Africa-focused Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) buyer survey that will inform the continent’s 4IR technology supplier community about the trends and needs of African technology buyers over the next 24-months.
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THE SURVEY – which is titled Africa 2020 – The B2B 4IR Buyer Survey – also seeks to shape knowledge around the attitudes of business buyers and available opportunities in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The survey, which will be conducted anonymously, will take respondents approximately five minutes to complete. The study includes questions on readiness to adopt or deploy 4IR technologies, talent, ethics and the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on business confidence, among others. The survey is set to conclude at the end of April. Survey respondents will be eligible for a free copy of the survey’s final report, in addition to a 50% discount code to join AI Expo Africa which will be held online. “As curators of Africa’s largest 4IR and Artificial Intelligence community, AI Media Group has made tremendous strides in mapping the 4IR landscape across the continent. This includes running two highly successful AI Expo Africa trade shows,” says Roy Bannister, CoFounder of AI Media Group. “The ongoing mapping of this landscape includes insights into the capabilities of the vast number of companies, organisations and people undertaking ground-breaking work in this sector and how they can fill the needs of buyers from enterprises, governments and companies of all sizes across all sectors like retail, banking, manufacturing, healthcare and others, with the end goal of matching companies needing 4IR and AI solutions with those very capable suppliers in Africa that can supply those solutions.” Nick Bradshaw, Co-Founder of AI Expo Africa, Africa’s largest AI business event adds: “We’re looking to gain greater insight of the state-of-play with 4IR buyers and what their current planning around buying and implementation of 4IR and AI solutions are for each industry, and how this planning has been affected by the current pandemic, if at all, and how other factors like lack of understanding of 4IR implementation and solutions available, cost, knowledge of options and other factors are impacting their buying and implementation plans.” ai Participate in the Survey HERE and get 50% Discount on AI Expo Africa 2020 Virtual Show Tickets
WORLD-CLASS SPEAKER line-up announced for AI Expo Africa 2020
Enterprise speakers at AI Expo Africa 2020 include: • Rudeon Snell, Senior Director Enterprise Solutions EMEA, SAP • Ati Ngubevana, Group Executive HoD – Digital Progress Reengineering, Vodacom • Lenore Kerrigan, Country Director, UiPath • Thavash Govender, Data and AI Specialist Lead, Microsoft • Andre Blaauw, Associate Director, PwC SA • Yauvan Hansraj, Cognitive Services Lead: AWS platform AI, Standard Bank • Ronnie Toerien, HCM Development & Strategy Leader Africa, Oracle • Daniel Wertheimer, Data Scientist, Absa • Ronald Du Toit, Data Scientist, Allan Gray • Phumza Dyani, CMO, Broadband Infraco • Lebogang Martins, Smart building IoT Project Manager, IoTnxt
SME and startup speakers include: • John, Kamara, Founder, Afyarekod • Takalani, Madzhadzhi CEO, Ashanti AI • Gregg Barrett, CEO, Cirrus AI • Antoine Paillusseau, Co-founder and CEO, FinChatBot • Johan Steyn, Senior Manager, IQ Business • Nella Oluoch, GM, Nakala Analytics • Rudradeb Mitra, Founder, Omdena • Jamie Peers, Business Development Director, Synatic • Shaun Moore, CEO, Trueface Bradshaw concluded, “It’s great to also see the growth in SME and startup vendors attending this year that are continuing to drive innovation in our region. We have some exciting new companies and products being introduced or launched at AI Expo Africa 2020 both from the Africa region and wider global 4IR community. “As we have moved AI Expo Africa 2020 online, it now makes it easier for other African startups and innovators to join our event as well as new companies seeking a market in the region from Europe, the America’s, Middles East and Asia to find new customers and distribution partners. Its going to be a regionally more inclusive event this year and we can’t wait to welcome our speakers, sponsors, vendors and delegates to the event.” ai For more info on the Virtual event, visit www.aiexpoafrica.com
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THE AI Media Group – organisers of Africa’s largest trade-focused artificial intelligence (AI), robotic process automation (RPA) and data science gathering, AI Expo Africa – has announced the first tranche of speakers for AI Expo Africa 2020. Nick Bradshaw, co-founder of AI Media Group, stated, “We are really proud of the initial world-class line up that includes a great mix of global thought leaders, large enterprise suppliers and buyers, as well as SMEs and new exciting startups that are seeking to showcase their technology and services at the event.” “As per our previous events we want to offer delegates a broad range of speakers that are firmly planted in the real-world deployment of Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies and on the cutting edge of innovation, ethics, innovation, change management, business and social good use cases,” added Bradshaw. The AI Expo Africa 2020 speaker line-up is led by Kay FirthButterfield, Head of AI and Machine Learning at the World Economic Forum; Neil Sahota, IBM Master Inventor, UN AI expert and lecturer at University of California, and Fred Werner, Head of Strategic Engagement at the International Telecommunication Union. Roy Bannister, co-founder of AI Media Group, stated, “It’s great to welcome global thought leaders like Kay Firth-Butterfield who heads up AI at the World Economic Forum, Fred Werner from the ITU who is pioneering the global AI for Good movement and Neil Sahota who is a globally acknowledged proponent of using new technology in a responsible and ethical manner.” “We also welcome the larger regional enterprise vendors like SAP, Microsoft, UiPath, Oracle and PWC into the mix as well as enterprise consumers of 4IR technology like Vodacom, Standard Bank, ABSA, and Allan Gray. Their case studies will be greatly welcomed by our delegates who are seeking to hear about how these technologies can be deployed,” added Bannister.
2ND QUARTER 2020
2020 Event to be hosted as Virtual Event ensuring greater Geographic Reach across Africa
COULD LECTORSA’S EYEBRAINGYM
be the next level in visual intelligence
and literature development?
South African edtech research and development company Lectorsa has launched an online solution EYEBRAINGYM, a new desktop and mobile app which applies knowledge from the latest findings around neuroplasticity to improve visual intelligence through training recognition, perceptual, visual processing, and cognitive skills in users. by Daniel Mpala
2ND QUARTER 2020
Thomas Marshall and Minda Marshall
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THE COMPANY which was founded by husband and wife duo Thomas Marshall and Minda Marshall who believe EYEBRAINGYM is “the next level” of visual processing, reading and cognitive development. Using the science of Neuromodulation and the physics of muscle training, the app helps users to “build” neural structures for improved interaction with visual information in a way that helps them see more, read faster, remember better and reason clearer. The adaptive learning app consists of six different solutions. These includes the free onboarding modules PlaceMe and TryMe as well as TrackMe, EyeBrainGymTM, ReadGym and VocabGym. EYEBRAINGYM makes use of algorithms that measure the user’s outcomes and then compiles the next session to develop skills and teach the strategies needed for improved processing. In essence, the app builds a course based upon each users’ performance to maximise personal improvements. Speaking at the app’s launch event in Cape Town in February, LectorSA director Minda Marshall said work on the app started with a quest to understand and enhance
the communication between the eye and brain. The app is based on data collected over ten years through their first online programme, the “LAB-on-line” – this solution assisted over 100 000 users in improving the way they learn and retain information.
‘App addressed global issues’
They believe the app will be crucial for teaching children, students and the workforce to prepare them for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. “With Industry4.0, we know the best learners are the ones who will be able to unlearn and relearn new information quickly. Life-long learning is crucial for all of us, and the battery of games developed for EyeBrainGym helps you to build a strategy to be able to work more efficiently with information. It’s crucial for everything else,” she adds. Thomas and Minda Marshall funded the research and development of the app, with no outside investment, waiving offers from venture capital to buying majority shares in their company. “The issues we are addressing are not limited to South Africa. It’s a global issue. Levels of visual intelligence and
LectorSA evaluates its outcomes against international norms. For example, the edtech firm measures relative reading efficiency using research done by Stanford Tayor, Helen Frackenpohl and James Pettee in the 60s. The other metrics the company uses to evaluate outcomes, which are also based on international norms, include Visual Processing Factor (VPF) which is measured in words per minute and Cognitive Development Factor (CDF) which is as percentage comprehension achieved in a specific complexity of content. The combined VPF and CDF values -- when multiplied – give an Action-Interpret-Understand Factor(AIUF) which denotes the relative efficiency-related in a Grade level norm and is an indicator of relative improvement achieved.
“
skill levels in kids that have worked on this system, which is a significant increase,” she said, adding that the results are very encouraging. “We found, for instance, at one of our projects at a university in South Africa where they did a pre and postassessment that students achieved a 77% increase in memory when completing the course. We’ve also seen with a smaller project at a secondary school in the North West that they were able to raise their Grade 12 distinction candidates’ academic levels from 74% to 81%,” said Marshall. If South Africa, and other countries on the continent, are to fully capitalise on the opportunities that the Fourth Industrial Revolution presents, she’ll need a well-educated workforce, and its solutions like the EYEBRAINGYM that will form the foundation of this new era. ai
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literacy development are a global phenomenon; people of all ages are challenged with the ocean of information that we have to work with,” said Marshall. LectorSA ran a pilot with their online solution in the Bahamas and Malaysia. “We saw great results there (in the Bahamas), and are currently discussing the rolling out of EyeBrainGym on a bigger scale. We believe we can add value, for instance, with the schools that were destroyed in the Bahamas during hurricane Dorian. Children were left behind because schools were destroyed. They have to catch-up in some way,” explained Marshall. In Malaysia, the online solution helped children who had, because of socio-economic issues, fallen out of the schooling system to get back in mainstream schooling after completing the project course. “We are proud to have achieved a six-year increase in
”
2ND QUARTER 2020
With Industry4.0, we know the best learners are the ones who will be able to unlearn and relearn new information quickly. Life-long learning is crucial for all of us, and the battery of games developed for EyeBrainGym helps you to build a strategy to be able to work more efficiently with information. It’s crucial for everything else, - Minda Marshall, director LectorSA.
KENYAN HEALTHTECH
Afya Rekod fast-tracks launch of medical data storage platform
2ND QUARTER 2020
Kenyan health tech startup Afya Rekod is sprinting to launch its artificial intelligence (AI) and Blockchain built consumer driven health data platform amidst the corona virus pandemic in support of global efforts to curb the disease by providing a portal for people across the world to store their health data in real-time, with a special focus on Covid-19.
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The advanced system, which was built to help users store their own health data, access health information and connect to health service providers, was set to launch at the end of July 2020. The founder and CEO of Afya Rekod John Kamara stated: “Afya Rekod is a medical data storage platform that allows patients to store their health records, the medication they take as well as keep journals of their statuses and that of their kids and families. The platform is AI driven and uses various AI modules to help detect abnormalities, detect early out breaks and monitor mobility and evolution of diseases via timely data analytics.” “Africa and most of the third world countries have limited doctors and access to healthcare services. Lack of patient data in real-time makes the problem even more damaging to both patients and health-service providers across the continent. Over 65% of Africans live in rural communities that are not connected and are off-grid in terms of access to healthcare services. This is the problem we are trying to solve,” explained Kamara. The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has shown the world once again that centralised health management systems that rely solely on people walking into a health facility are not sufficient. The world also needs decentralised systems that enable people to update their own records anytime, anywhere in multi-formats. One of the critical issues affecting the world during emergencies like this includes inefficiency that leads to
untimely deaths due to lack of or limited data, scanty access to healthcare services, unverified information and delayed responses among other things. “We are fast tracking to launch the platform four months ahead of its time to enable the world to capture real-time data that will heat-map areas where the Corona infections are growing and monitor the growth in real-time by collecting usergenerated information from millions of users across multiple geographic locations to allow for sufficient data analysis in support of the global efforts to curb the disease,” “Afya Rekod comes are a crucial time when the world is experiencing one of the biggest pandemics of its generations and we need to monitor the movement and evolution of the virus closely to determine the changing nature of symptoms among other things,” further stated Kamara. The growing digitisation of healthcare at a time when the world is required to isolate provides an unprecedented opportunity for the world to come together and unite in efforts. Afya Rekod is currently in discussions with various entities across governments and developing partners to explore how their efforts can be accelerated urgently for Covid-19. The platform presents a unique ability to address critical emerging health needs as it has a differentiated product that is centred around the most important entity in a health equation – the individual or person – which presents a rapidly growing opportunity to launch an AI engine that solves and helps the world prevent the spread of global pandemics like Covid-19. ai
DIGITAL SKILLS AGENCY My Future Work to launches 4IR Masterclass
My Future Work founders Melody Xaba and Lebo Mofolo
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BY RE-SKILLING and up-skilling workforces through different masterclasses, My Future Work helps organisations innovate and compete in the digital economy. Some of its other masterclasses are on topics that include Innovation and Digital Marketing and Leading Digital Transformation. The firm also builds custom learning management systems and assists organisations to create bespoke training material that meets specific up-skilling requirements. Some of the company’s clients include the Southern African Institute of Government Auditors. My Future Work was founded last year by Lebo Mofolo and Melody Xaba. Mofolo holds a Post-Graduate Diploma in Digital Business from Wits Business School and is currently reading towards a Master’s degree in Digital Business and has a background in finance. Xaba, who has a background in TV production, is currently completing an MBA with Henley Business School with a research focus on 4IR technologies. The duo started the company after a chance encounter at their kids’ school playground led them realise that they were interested in solving the same problem. “Our biggest motivator for starting My Future Work, was the problem of recruiters struggling to find the right digital skills for their projects, and yet had at the time we had an unemployment rate of 28%. We are contributing to bridging this gap by upskilling the workforce and helping to create employment opportunities,” Xaba says that the content for the masterclass was designed inhouse. “We’ve contextualised the use of 4IR technologies for African organisations. The content is informed by research and published knowledge about exponential technologies, and our experience with assisting organisations to implement digital solutions,” she adds. The masterclass will be conducted through recorded online content, enabling participants to log in at their own time and study at their own pace. “We cover details from what the technologies are, to how the technologies can be used for innovation. The masterclass looks at AI, Big Data, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and 3D printing and more,” says Xaba. My Future Work’s partners include Netherlands-based AIHR Academy, the Institute of People Management, ICT Works, The Coloured Cube and ZuluNomad with which the startup just developed a masterclass for tourism entrepreneurs aimed at helping them redefine their businesses beyond the COVID-19 pandemic using 4IR technologies. Xaba says the startup plans to partner with captains of industry from different sectors in producing 4IR masterclasses that are career and industry specific. “As a country we really shouldn’t let a good crisis go to the waste. We’ve been victims of our past for too long and we must take back our power. COVID-19 and the lock-down is time to flex our brain cells and develop solutions that will contribute to economic recovery,” says Xaba. ai
2ND QUARTER 2020
My Future Work, a Johannesburg-based company has launched a 4IR Masterclass aimed at professionals and entrepreneurs looking to use Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) technologies to innovate new solutions for businesses as well as solve social and economic issues.
HOW WILL THE COVID-19 pandemic impact Africa s AI and Data Science sector?
“This pandemic has certainly brought about massive disruption and global economic devastation, however a silver lining may just be the dawn of a new digital era powered by exponential technologies,” Rudeon Snell, Senior Director: Intelligent Enterprise Solutions EMEA at SAP By Daniel Mpala IN EARLY May, South Africa, along with Nigeria, Ghana and several African countries had started easing down nationwide lock-down restrictions put in place to curb the COVID-19 pandemic. A question on the minds of those in the artificial intelligence (AI) and data science sector as they wait with bated breath for industry and the rest of the business world to re-open is what impact this will have on their vertical and other related 4IR services and products. The IMF projected in its April 2020 World Economic Outlook that the global economy will contract sharply by -3% this year. The IMF projected that Nigeria and South Africa will in 2020 experience a contraction of their GDP by -3.4% and -5.8%, respectively. The good news is that, assuming that the pandemic fades in the second half of 2020 and containment efforts can be gradually unwound, the global economy is projected to grow by 5.8% in 2021, with the GDP of Nigeria and South Africa expected to grow by 2.4% and 4%, respectively.
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‘Accelerated digital transformation’
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Between 20 March and 6 April, market intelligence firm IDC surveyed 50 key CIOs from across South African organisations with more than 100 employees on the impact of COVID-19 on their organisations. Speaking during a webinar on 16 April where the findings – which include insights from the ICT vendor community – were presented, Mark Walker, Associate Vice President Sub-Saharan Africa at IDC, said there was a feeling among the firm’s analysts
that the pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation discussion and brought it forward “by a good one year to 18 months.” “From a digital transformation perspective, the technologies, the AI, Machine Learning, Robotic Process Automation solutions we’re seeing where projects were under-away and they were having a business impact those projects will continue, but overall we’re seeing a mellowing of spend,” said Walker. He explained that the current focus on cost control and retaining cash will influence decision on spend. “One thing that the CIOs have said is they are turning the pennies over a lot more vigorously and there has got to be a very strong business impact, a very strong business case to either continue projects or continue managing projects that were already under-away,” said Walker. Jon Tullet, Senior Research Manager for IT Services and Cloud at the IDC, explained that existing digital transformation efforts – which are delivering benefit directly related to the pandemic are being accelerated. “So remote working and productivity, that’s way going up, 83% of CIOs say they are prioritising that,” he said. He also explained that the emphasis on decreasing costs and instead focusing on business agility and efficiency, rather than exploiting new markets for example, could see a slow down in some projects in the longer term. “But still, 45% say they are still going to continue with DX initiatives as they planned – which is very healthy. For the most part, very very few organisations are bailing out of their digital transformation efforts. Only 20% say they are hunkering down and focusing on keeping the lights on,” he added. This number, he cautioned, could go up or down depending on how the pandemic response goes. “But the fact that we’re at this point in the cycle and only 20% are in that very defensive state of mind is very positive. From a DX point of view we’re seeing responses as we’d expect but we’re not seeing it coming to a grinding halt. So that’s all good,” said Tullet.
‘Spike in adoption of cloud services’
Tullet pointed out that as the economy slows down and
‘Big push for automation, but politically challenging’
Good news for automation players, as Tullet pointed out, is that there’s a big drive towards automation and automated processes including Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and industrial automation. “That’s an urgent pivot as well because in a market condition like this where no one is really sure what the impact on their workforce will be, no one’s really knows how long you’re going
to have everyone working from home, there’s a lot of questions marks, and automation helps buffer a lot of the risk,” he said. He however cautioned that automation is a “politically very challenging activity” to be doing right now, especially in high density workforce environments like telco and finance where automation will likely result in job losses. “It’s one of those areas where you may have to make decisions which are politically safer even if they are technologically less optimal. That is likely to impact people like contact centre operators for example, in particular. Areas like that where automation can make a big difference, but right now is it economically the best thing? Not in every environment,” said Tullet.
So while the IDC has seen a steady rise in spend on RPA, Tullet said “more innovative and forward looking stuff” like Internet of Things and AI is “kind of dropping down”. He explained that most firms won’t actually cut spending, but instead re-align it. “It’s not that they are not going to spend on it, but are just not going to spend on it now,” he added. “The budgets are being held and people are saying let us just hold on to this project, we’ll hold on to it for this quarter and beginning of second half we will revaluate this and see if we’re going to do this project in toto or completely, or are we going to re-jig it to deal with the new realities. Essentially, the budgets are still all there and they are moving forward,” said Walker. Sabelo Dlamini, Senior Research and Consulting Manager, Telecoms at IDC, explained that in the finance sector there will be a drop in spend as banks focus more on acquiring devices and productivity tools that will enable their workforce to work from home. “In fintech, longer term we’re expecting the financial services sector to focus more on the digital channels, more on automation using RPA, machine learning and cloud service for operational rationalisation,” said Dlamini. Continued on page 32
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‘Re-aligning of spend’
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revenues go down as well in the short term, some companies will put some of their projects on the back burner. “It’s annoying when projects get deferred because revenue gets deferred, but it will generally come back to the table in the future,” added Tullet. He said that in instances where there are big forecast drops in terms of enterprise equipment, there’s likely to be an impact in services as well, adding that this will also be affected by the uptake of cloud. Tullet pointed out that around the world, IDC has seen a spike in the adoption of cloud services because of the crisis. “Cloud is a natural answer to a lot of the problems,” he added. This shift, he explained, is going to have a long term impact and that will have a very big impact on system integrators, software specialists and consultants. “These are services where as it stands service providers are already pivoting, we’ve seen this for a few years now. The major providers are all shifting, they are all refocusing. So it’s really just a question now of have they done enough? This is not a deadline that anyone saw coming. I think most of the big guys have, there are going to have some pain, but they will be positioned for it. “The smaller players are probably in trouble. We know that when there’s a global incident like this or even at a national scale, the SME market tends to eat a lot of the pain, and it also affects service suppliers, because a lot of the SMEs play some contracting role or a specialist role, and so as a result that’s going to have an impact on service delivery as well. At this point no one knows how long the pandemic will last for, with the world’s hopes currently pinned on the emergence of a vaccine. A report by researchers at the Centre for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIRDAP) posits that the pandemic could last anywhere between 18 to 24 months – which is how long it will take for 60% to 70% of the global population to get infected and hopefully build immunity to the virus. How long then, will it take the services market to recover? Tullet said this would be between three to six months. “That’s normally the services lag so as the market starts to recover it will probably take one or two quarters for the services market to fully come back,” he added.
How will the COVID-19 pandemic
impact Africa’s AI and Data Science sector? Continued from page 31 Walker advised that there will be a “fair amount of reprioritisation” of solutions in most firms according to relevance, accessibility, affordability and security.
‘Opportunity for those that can help with automation’
Gregg Barrett, CEO of the Cirrus initiative – which aims to support AI research and commercialisation efforts of academia and industry – says the trend towards automation in the manufacturing sector has been accelerated due to the pandemic. He believes the crisis presents an opportunity to those that can either help other companies to automate and innovate or that are taking advantage of automation. “An example that comes to mind on this front is Kebotix, who are using machine learning and RPA to automate much of what was a mostly human effort,” said Barrett. Barett doesn’t think the AI industry will undergo major adaptation because of the pandemic as the crisis has underscored a lot of the current AI efforts. “While those around drug discovery and drug development are now seeing an added boost, the value proposition of many others lie somewhere on a continuum from unchanged to slightly higher. Of course, with any hype cycle there is cheap money supporting some dubious propositions, and the financial implications of an economic downturn will rightly cleanse the system of those,” he added.
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‘Investment in AI, automation technologies’
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Charlette N’Guessan, the Ivorian co-founder and COO of Accra-based fintech startup BACE Group, foresees increased investment in AI and automation technologies in the financial, transport, health, manufacturing and public sectors. She explained that the pandemic has brought to light the several use cases of AI and robotics in healthcare. These, she said, include chatbots for online consultations, the use of robots to assist doctors and nurses, as well as the use of AI for the analysis and interpretation of scan results in radiology. “In the financial sector, a lot of branches closed to avoid exposing their employees and customers to the spread of the virus. It is, therefore, a question of reducing human contact without reducing financial transactions, which is difficult because for any financial institution, before giving access to its services, it is necessary to ensure due diligence, meet the Know-Your-Client (KYC) requirement and verify the identity of the client,” said N’Guessan. With AI, she pointed out, financial services firms can easily digitise their services in a secure environment. “For example, establishing online on-boarding and fraud detection through facial recognition, interacting with the client in real-time through the use of intelligent chatbots, and optimising the tasks performed by staff through automation and advanced analytics,” said N’Guessan. She further believes that AI will also enable these companies to anticipate customer needs. It is crucial, N’Guessan, believes for developers, data scientists, AI researchers and leaders from across industry to
collaborate and invest in the development of reliable, optimal and secure solutions during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. “The players in the AI industry are aware of the research and development opportunities for AI models that will meet the needs of the market. We are also aware that if we fail, we could face the fourth winter of AI, a period interpreted by the failure of AI models which could, unfortunately, reduce investment in AI-based solutions,” she said.
‘Increased uptake of AI, RPA in manufacturing and public sector’
Rudeon Snell, Senior Director: Intelligent Enterprise Solutions EMEA at SAP, pointed out that the pandemic is forcing businesses to find new ways of working to remain operational, with many turning to tech to make this possible. “Everything from how we pay for things, to how we access services and how we experience brands will change. These inflection points all provide opportunities for digital technologies such as RPA and AI to make and impact and become critical to the value provided in the end to end business process of the organisation. In short, practically every industry will experience and uptake in tech with COVID-19 acting as the key change agent for businesses and consumer alike,” said Snell. He further explained that once the business value of the integration of these technologies into the organisational processes have been established, businesses simply just will not go back to how it was before. “The longer the lock-downs last the more it necessitates change and the quicker those changes are implemented and adopted in order for the value to be realised,” he added. Snell believes we are likely to see increased uptake of these technologies from the public sector across Africa too. He said there already are signifiant investments being made by governments across the globe in digital technologies such as contact tracing apps, AI powered chatbots, AI powered drones for disinfections, medical tools that automate the interpretation of COVID-19 proliferation to improve diagnostic procedures and digital currencies to name but a few in helping to combat the pandemic. Snell believes the acceleration in the deployment, adoption and consumption of AI-powered, cloud-based solutions as a result of COVID-19 will be aided by enterprise software providers offering their technology capabilities free of charge during the pandemic. “Look at the impact of SAP offering its Ariba Discovery sourcing software temporarily free of charge to help businesses cope with supply chain disruptions across the globe. Also with SAP Qualtrics offering its Remote Work Pulse service to SAP customers free of charge during this crisis, it helps them understand if they are remote workforce ready in addition to how their employees are coping during the pandemic,” he added. Snell said once the business value of these solutions are showcased in the environments of the customers running them, removing that value is not really an option. “This pandemic has certainly brought about massive disruption and global economic devastation, however a silver lining may just be the dawn of a new digital era powered by exponential technologies,” he said. ai
AFRICAN DRONE AND
Data Academy Graduates First Students The African Drone and Data Academy (ADDA) graduated its first students in March at a ceremony in Malawi, enabling them to build and operate drones and analyse the data from them.
DDA students Hope Chilunga (left) and Anne Nderitu attach a sensor to a drone. Photo: UNICEF/Moving Minds Multimedia
NIGERIAN EDTECH STARTUP
Gradely receives 2 k investment from early-stage investor Microtraction Continued from page 20 Microtraction pointed out in its statement that factors such as low access to quality education due to a dearth of funds in Nigeria’s education sector and low quality of learning resources, mean that students have a difficult time passing the core subjects like Mathematics and English Language. Nigeria students have reportedly had repeatedly poor performances in the annual private West African Senior School Certificate Examination (WASSCE). “Gradely launches at a time when most schools are looking to explore digital learning for the first time. Gradely’s
laser focus on getting intelligible insights from the student’s work is what truly differentiates them and underscores their desire to make an impact in the collective growth and educational journey of each student in Sub-Saharan Africa,” explained Microtraction. The early-stage investor said it believes Gradley’s approach will improve Nigeria’s recurring mass failure in certificate examinations, thereby producing qualified students that are ready for the next chapter of their educational journey. “We are confident in the team’s ability to pull this off by driving improved retention and results for primary and secondary school students in Africa,” it added. ai
2ND QUARTER 2020
cities and sustainable economies,” Brian Kamamia, ADDA project manager, said at the graduation. “You have the necessary skill that you need to make a difference in your community and help the next generation do the same thing.” To see the full ceremony, go here ai
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THE STUDENTS are now licensed drone pilots by the government of Malawi, are certified AUVSI Trusted Operator Programme Level 2 pilots, and have the skills needed to enter the drone and data analytics workforce, according to ADDA. “This is just the commencement of great things from us,” graduate Anne Nderitu, a student from Kenya, said at the graduation. “We have received world-class knowledge in the drone technology, and it is upon to use it to use this knowledge to lead and create a better Africa.” In partnership with UNICEF, Virginia Tech and the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) helped open ADDA in Lilongwe, Malawi, to provide a new generation of students with drone, data and entrepreneurship skills. Virginia Tech had previously provided training workshops in Malawi and was tapped by UNICEF to manage the academy. In 2017, UNICEF also launched the first humanitarian drone corridor in Malawi to provide a controlled environment for governments, aid organizations, industry and universities to explore how drones could help deliver services in remote areas. ADDA’s initial training was a 12-week course to develop expertise in using drones for humanitarian, development and commercial purposes. By 2022, ADDA plans to have a two-year master’s degree program in drone technology, in conjunction with MUST. More than half of the inaugural class are women with undergraduate degrees in science, technology or engineering. “Drones and data can really help with... building sustainable
10
ways AI is leading the fight against COVID-19
In the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, innovators, high tech companies, startups and researchers have turned to artificial intelligence to find solutions to fight the virus.
AI SPECIALIST and former IBM executive Andrew Quixley opines the technology, along with high performance computing (HPC), is one of the most potent weapons in our arsenal as the world combats the corona virus. Here are 10 ways Quixley believes AI is leading the fight against COVID-19.
Outbreak identificatio
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Early awareness of a communicable disease outbreak is critical to the efforts to stop it before it really gets established. But who knew that a small handful of flu-like cases emanating from somewhere in China in December were actually the faint signals of something much larger looming? The answer is Kamran Khan, founder and CEO of BlueDot. Khan’s algorithm is trained to look for disease epidemics. It uses AI’s power to make sense of unstructured information, scanning foreign language news sources for anomalies that signal an outbreak, and using global airline ticketing data to predict where the outbreak will go next.
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by Andrew Quixley AI Specialist and former IBM executive
According to this report from CNBC, BlueDot was able to infer a disease outbreak in Wuhan and warn its clients on 31 December, fully six days before the US Center for Disease Control and nine days before the World Health Organisation.
Tracking and predicting the spread of the disease
A major disease outbreak is a highly complex system of systems with potentially trillions of moving parts and millions of variables. Figuring out which of the variables are the main deterministic factors and measuring their likely impact in such a complex system requires immense computing resources. Think multivariate analysis on steroids, on steroids. Machine Learning is particularly suited to modelling such complex scenarios to produce algorithms that are a virtual reflection of reality. The algorithms can be used to predict outcomes when the variables change. Arguably, only machinelearning can do this, and its importance in the toolkit for epidemiology cannot be overstated.
Tracing people who could be infected
The early containment stage for COVID-19 involves meticulously tracing anyone who might have been in contact with an infected person, or been in the vicinity of the pathogen, and isolating them. According to this report from Reuters, China’s exceptional advances in state-wide surveillance technology and their national database of faces enabled them to track one individual from Hangzhou, first through Automated Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) and later through Automated Facial Recognition (AFR), when he breached his own self-isolation before the end of the two weeks. Was this a proportionate and ethical use of AI-powered facial recognition? No doubt this man’s neighbours would have a point of view.
Communicating with citizens
The first infrastructure casualty in a major outbreak will be the government helplines. The same day that the first case is confirmed in any country, the public and private health call centres are likely to be swamped with calls from anxious citizens. Even countries with highly developed healthcare infrastructure are vulnerable to overload, as evidenced with
AI’s Deep Learning power enables pharmaceutical researchers to predict the characteristics of new chemical compounds that don’t exist yet, running down the maths for hundreds of thousands of possible permutations in just hours and reducing the lead time to ‘invent’ a new drug by orders of magnitude. It can also be used to predict which existing molecules might be effective against the new disease. Pharmaceutical Technology reported that leading AI-technology provider Iktos and research centre SRI International ‘will combine [the Iktos] generative modelling technology with SRI’s fully automated synthetic chemistry platform ... to design compounds and speed-up the identification of drug candidates’ to tackle COVID-19. There are already successful precedents. In the last two weeks, researchers from MIT published this paper in Cell describing how they used AI to discover a powerful new antibiotic––named Halicin––capable of killing some of the
Triaging new cases
The waiting room at the hospital or the doctor’s surgery/office/ rooms is the last place anyone wants to be during a pandemic. Moreover, if the prevalence of cases becomes very high, there will be too many new patients to triage for the numbers of clinicians available. AI can help to scale up the capacity and allow people to get a first diagnosis without visiting a waiting room. AI-powered symptom checker chatbots are already in use, like this example Symptomate: https://symptomate.com/chatbot/ I tested Symptomate and was impressed by its detailed questions. I responded as if I was a COVID-19 sufferer, but I may not have got the symptoms quite right. This is the output––with sincere thanks and/or apologies to Symptomate for being my sandpit today. Obviously novel coronavirus is a new pathogen that was unknown to science until very recently, so symptom-checkers need to be updated for the new disease. The Wall Street Journal has reported that there have been challenges in doing this, but there’s no reason to believe that the challenges are insurmountable. Continued on page 38
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Finding an effective treatmen
world’s nastiest pathogens. Earlier in February, European Pharmaceutical Review reported that two companies had an AI-discovered new drug––DSP1181, expected to be indicated for the treatment of OCD––which is starting Phase 1 clinical trials.
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the UK’s National Health Service (NHS) helpline, NHS 111. No human-only contact centre can scale its capacity by 10, 100 or 1,000 times overnight. Even if there were hundreds or thousands of volunteers available, and enough lines, desks and headsets, there isn’t enough time to train the agents to give the right answers every time. AI-powered textbots and talkbots can take the strain, by answering the commonly-asked questions at any time of the day or night, giving totally consistent answers every time, and are able scale up to cope with extreme peak workloads.
DATA SCIENCE VIRTUAL mentoring platform Notitia to launch in Ghana in May
In Ghana and looking to learn Data Science or start a career in the field? Notitia, a new virtual mentoring platform, is set to launch in the country in May.
2ND QUARTER 2020
DATA SCIENCE is not everyone’s cup of tea. As Derek K. Degbedzui, co-founder of the platform, points out, it’s a field that demands more patience and research. “This platform is available to everyone who desires to take up a Data Science role in any organisation. We don’t ask for a degree, we are much concerned about certain skills that are required of a data scientist,” says Degbedzui.
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Applications to join the platform will open in June. Degbedzui says prospective applicants will get the most out of Notitia if they are able to commit between 10 to 40 hours a week for between eight and 12 weeks. Degbedzui adds that applicants that have completed a data science project or courses in Machine Learning, as well as those who have built a data processing pipeline stand a better chance of joining the platform.
Degbedzui explains that Notitia mentees will take about six-months to complete the platform’s course. Mentors will guide participants through a full-stack machine learning project over a period of time that they will decide on together with their assigned mentor. This, Degbedzui explains, will be between four to 16-weeks, depending on the project and the mentee’s experience level. “Normally you’ll focus on industry best practices in deploying ML models to production, devops, writing clean code, and doing proper data engineering and data cleaning,” “Our mentors are Data Science and Machine Learning professionals who have established themselves in their industry. They’re employees and alumni from AI groups and currently working in other similar companies. We screen all our mentors carefully to ensure quality. You’ll also get the chance to interview your mentor yourself before you commit,” says Degbedzui. Notitia mentors will provide support via office hours, code review, and general advice or guidance. Notitia will also check in regularly with mentees to ensure things are running smoothly. In addition, participants will have access to Notitia’s Slack workspace with other mentors, mentees, and Notitia admins, ensuring 24/7 support. Degbedzui says although it will be free to sign-up for the platform, mentees who successfully go through the mentorship programme and secure a job will pay 10% of their first three months’ salary to Notitia. “This charge is independent of any other training that might be introduced for which the mentee may want to participate,” he explains. Notitia has partnered with Runmila AI Institute, Blossom Academy, IIPGH and Amalitech on the mentorship programme. Degbedzui says the platform is looking to partner with tertiary institutions and organisations that may want to employ data scientists. The platform is looking to accept 100 Ghana-based mentees in its first cohort, with subsequent cohorts set to include participants from around the continent. ai
N W O T E CAP
K E E W TECH
Cape Town, Western Cape – Africa’s leading digital hub. A place with a world-class digital ecosystem, where resources and talent meet commercial and social opportunity.
Amazon chooses Cape Town. The Western Cape has worldclass tech skills and capabilities. Cape Town is the only AWS region in Africa.
Cape Town / Stellenbosch tech ecosystem employs more than Lagos and Nairobi combined.* (Source: endeavor analysis 2018)
Naspers, Africa’s highest valued tech giant is based in Cape Town.
½ of the top universities in Africa
are from SA, with 3 located in the Western Cape.*
Cape Town is ranked
30
cities in the top at the forefront of global tech.*
(Source: QS World Ranking 2019)
Cape Town has
25
(Source: Saville consulting 2019)
co-working more than spaces and more than
20 local and
The Cape Innovation & Technology Initiative (CiTi) is one of the oldest tech incubators on the continent.
international accelerators.
Cape Town has the lion’s share of the headquarters of majority of new startups in the e-commerce ecosystem in SA. The Western Cape has widespread fibre networks and
4G coverage with 5G being rolled out.
The Western Cape is connected to the world via multiple submarine cable networks. Open access data centres and global cloud services
6th most affordable city compared with 30 top global tech cities. Cape Town is the
(Source: Saville consulting 2019)
10 ways AI is leading the fight against COVID-19 Continued from page 35
Enforcing the quarantine
AI-powered Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) or smart drones are commonly used to access areas that are hard-to-reach or dangerous, such as power lines and cell towers. Smart survey drones are now being re-tooled in China to police quarantined areas from above, to perform decontamination protocols and to deliver lightweight essential supplies. This report in the South China Morning Post describes the initiative in detail.
Delivering essential supplies on the ground
Consider the plight of any bus or taxi drivers during a pandemic. They could spend their entire workday in a closed space with strangers, not knowing whether their passengers are carrying the virus or not. Unsurprisingly, the mobility sector is already a casualty of the lockdown in Wuhan, but driverless vehicles have taken over humans are prohibited. As this report from World Economic Forum describes, driverless logistics vehicles are re-supplying hospitals in infected areas while autonomous robots are now delivering meals within hospitals for more than 40 Chinese cities.
Eliminating fake news
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Fake news about coronavirus has been spreading faster than the virus itself, and there’s no shortage of it, according to this report from UK’s bbc.com. Zany memes aren’t the issue–– the problem is fake material that purports to be real and is capable of causing harm, such as advising people to drink bleach to cure COVID-19. AI is being used to flag fake news by learning which
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web sites are more authoritative, identifying posts that use sensational language or images that don’t fit with the right date and location for the ‘story’ they support, and which posts are most likely to be coming from bots. Scott Tong explores the detail in this article on Marketplace.
Managing complex supply chains
Empty shelves are a familiar sight in any country that has the virus, but panic-buying of hand sanitiser is only the tip of iceberg, right down at the consumer end. If we follow those supply chains that originate in China–– and many do––upstream to their source, COVID-19 is proving to be a wrecking ball, preventing workers even getting to work to make the stuff that makes the stuff that makes the stuff. The economic impact is already colossal. Supply chains––like disease epidemics––are complex systems of systems, and they’ve been a great proving ground in recent years for AI’s power to optimise outcomes by analysing the impact of many variable factors. Mark Balte’s article in the European Business Review illustrates the extraordinary degree to which AI is now intrinsic in the SCP domain. Rebooting global supply chains and getting back to ‘normal’ will be impossible without it.
AI is the ace in our hand
Humankind is generally at its best when confronted by the need for urgency and an existential threat. COVID-19 brings us both. In the weeks ahead, the greatest minds will come up with something new. It’s what we’ve always done in the past, only this time we will have AI to extend the limits of our brainpower as never before. ai
COVID-19
is SPEEDING up the
digital economy in Africa
When I postulated the digital economy in Africa in 2013 as a precursor to becoming a full-time angel investor and subsequently writing about its KINGS in 2016, it never crossed my mind that in 2020 COVID-19 would be the SPEEDING agent. By Eric M.K Osiakwan; Managing Partner, Chanzo Capital
4TH QUARTER 2019
WHO COULD have predicted COVID-19 except Bill Gates who alluded to a viral outbreak in his 2015 TED talk while George Bush and Barack Obama were more accurate in prospecting 2020 as the year? However, none of them envisaged the extent of this epidemic which has pretty much collapsed the capital markets and slowed down the economies of many countries with many of us at home literally trying to survive the pandemic.
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Policy action African leaders took the major decision to declare a lockdown and, in some cases, daily curfews for fear of the virus spreading and overwhelming the (in some cases non-existent) healthcare systems. While those decisions have been contested in some cases on the basis that the informal sectors of our economies (that earn a daily wage) are going to suffer the most, the bright side of that decision is the need to go online while in self quarantine. The need to go online was helped by the rapid adoption of smart phones in Africa as a result of the reduction in price and supply of handsets some of which are being locally assembled and manufactured by the like of Mara Phones, etc.
Bandwidth
My friend Ben Roberts, Chief Technology and Information Office (CTIO) of Liquid Telecom asked in his article “Did corona just kickstart the digital economy in Africa?” – my answer is NO because the digital economy has been in
Africa but YES, it is being speeded up in ways that no one would have thought off before. The premise of Ben’s article is the sudden growth in bandwidth that he can see on their network from March 15th, 2020 when these lockdowns came into effect. People are home so of course they would have to commute virtually and so suddenly they would have to purchase more bandwidth. This is helped by the reduction in bandwidth price as a result of the huge investments made by the fiber and satellite providers (FSPs), mobile network operators (MNOs) and internet service providers (ISPs) over the last decade. Some of these operators recently moved to uncapping the provision of broadband and in some cases removing the expiration of prepaid broadband purchase. With the benefit of hindsight, it would seem that the operators got the lockdown memo- maybe Kenya greenlighting Google loom for 4G was it?
Mobile money
In late 2007/8 I was in Kenya working with some colleagues to launch The East African Marine System (TEAMS) when in December the election violence pushed us to the curb but like now one of the unintended consequences of that outbreak was the rapid adoption of Mpesa - a mobile money (MOMO) service that was introduced by Safaricom an MNO. Suddenly everyone in Kenya was transacting using Mpesa because not only was cash not available but
Evidence
My personal experience happened recently, I needed to get some groceries from the convenience store in my neighborhood and for the first time I was able to pay with MOMO. Two years ago, the same store demanded that I go withdraw the money from a MOMO agent and come pay with cash for my groceries. While time may account for the change in mindset, coupled with the current situation where people have limited access to cash, the store has no choice than to accept MOMO. I noted in my exchanges with the store owner last night that they even take visa and master card on the point of sale (POS) they have installed – suddenly my local convenience store has gone digital and so is the case in other parts of the continent.
Ecommerce
The next step for them is to get their inventory online so I can go online order and have them deliver it to my home (which in this case is walking distance) – that makes them a fully-fledged e-commerce business. Off course I recommended Hubtel to them to use for their online store because it is one of our portfolio companies and their demand is going through the roof due to COVID-19. With bandwidth and digital payment sorted, lots of small businesses are going online enabling an escalation of e-commence in ways that were not envisaged before. Even though Jumia’s shares are plummeting with the hit taken by the capital markets, grocery delivery companies like Zulzi are experiencing an escalation of demand for their services to the extent that last week they employed one hundred new shoppers and delivery agents in South Africa. Companies like Sokowatch who just raised $14-million and COPIA Global who raised $26-million last year are all seeing demand on their network.
Online learning
On 17 March, Ghana’s Minister of Education announced at a press conference that students who are home can use online learning platforms like eCampus - a portfolio company – their traffic went through the roof. Since then the use of the platform has being on the rise necessitating a ramp up in resources and investment for
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a startup that has struggled to gain traction. Earlier in the year, we partnered with the African Business Centre for Developing Education (ABCDE) led by former Minister of Education, Dr. Ekwow Spio-Garbrah supported by Vivo Energy Ghana to commence a nationwide e-learning programme aimed at encouraging students in second cycle institutions to explore e-learning options to augment the traditional classroom and textbook learning. As if we knew COVID-19 would necessitate an adoption of our platform nationwide as is the case with other platforms worldwide.
Online assessment
Nyaho Medical Centre the leading private hospital in Ghana (on whose board I serve) moved quickly to establish protocols to screen patients who visit the facility for COVID-19 so they can isolate, test and treat them before local transmission kicks in. While that has been very successful, the on-going fear has been the facility being overwhelmed by imported cases even if we could curb local transmission. Our two-year partnership with Clear Space Labs to build Serenity – our digital health platform came in handy as our team launched the Corona Virus Assessment Tool online self-assessment chatbot that allows one to take an assessment from home before proceeding to a medical facility if necessary. The uptake has been overwhelming.
Is increased disruption a positive consequence ?
Recently, I jumped on a catch-up call with my friend and fellow investor Ravinder Sikand of Energy Access Ventures and we discussed some of the elements above and then we came to the crucial question “what do you think is going to change post the epidemic?” In addition to the increased digitisation discussed above, he is of the view increased disruption of production would also pickup. This has been seen with the delivery of Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) as well as increased recognition for home grown innovation and co-operation. Some examples include, Kenyan university designed ventilator for local conditions or the Safe Hands programme launched by a number of Kenyan corporates. To continue riding this wave, policy is needed to increase competitiveness coupled with more recent technology developments like 3D printing and distributed energy which will impact the way we develop and implement outcomes that are less susceptible to supply chain shocks. ai
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mobility was restricted. Fast forward to COVID-19 in 2020 we are all on lockdown so access to cash is limited since mobility is restricted so guess what’s happening on the mobile operator’s networks – a surge in MOMO adoption and use.
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To continue riding this wave, policy is needed to increase competitiveness coupled with more recent technology developments like 3D printing and distributed energy which will impact the way we develop and implement outcomes that are less susceptible to supply chain shocks.
Cracking Machine Learning
TO SPEED UP CLIENT SERVICE
Nedbank Insurance and its service provider Synthesis have used machine learning and design thinking to solve a complex challenge that every business faces: How do you channel a sea of emails so that they land at the right desks? How do you automate email routing? IN THE past Nedbank Insurance employees spent eight hours a day reading and categorising emails. A robot now does it 24/7 to make sure that clients get a quick response. It’s helped Nedbank Insurance to clear its main client inbox 7,5 times faster, to get rid of the backlog and to speed up client service. And there seems to be great potential for this application to be used across the organisation to drive efficiencies.
Challenge
Today every business has an email address. And if you’re a financial services organisation with many business sections and over a million clients, that channel can get crowded.
and with Synthesis we succeeded.” Synthesis has been around the block. “We have significant experience in using emerging technologies to help organisations transform, but we’ve found there’s something more important than technology: Applying design thinking. We try to define an end-to-end system that is practical and includes all supporting processes. The challenge was interesting and we had to work closely with stakeholders and create a plan with the Nedbank tech team,” says Marais Neethling, Synthesis AI Evangelist.
Solution
Following various methods to analyse email and attachment data, Synthesis built predictive machine learning models with natural language processing algorithms to understand the intent of the email. The models first learnt from the employees at a rapid pace, refining the process through feedback. Then, when the models performed reliably in terms of predicting where emails should go, they were routed automatically. “What struck me is that Synthesis used design thinking to truly understand what the problem was. In a very short time they created a prototype, tested it with users and then adapted it. The solution they created revolved around genuine client satisfaction and not just completing a task, and that worked for us,” says Bandyopadhyay.
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Results
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Nedbank Insurance covers clients’ life and other insurance needs and receives thousands of emails about claims, policies, address changes, complaints, queries and potential new clients. Some emails are long; others are short. Many have attachments that must be categorised correctly to simplify processing for back-end teams. There are also unpredictable peaks when for example heavy storms cause inboxes to be bombarded. With this in mind, Indranil Bandyopadhyay, Head of Business IT Enablement for Nedbank Insurance, suspected that an automated system could solve the problem, and increase operational efficiency and client satisfaction. “With the old system, a single person can, on average, process one email every 60 to 300 seconds (three minutes on average). That’s about 160 emails per dedicated resource a day. With email volumes growing, our backlogs were mounting, and we didn’t want this to influence our client service. We knew technology could help us create a more sustainable solution, but we needed the right partner,’ says Bandyopadhyay. ‘Nedbank Insurance had to try a couple of times to get this right
The new system has significantly reduced email processing time, on average from 720 seconds to 28 seconds. “Clients’ experience will change immensely, because now we can work on whatever our clients request immediately. During a peak the machine can handle the volume of requests and now nothing hinders us from responding to client needs. This will greatly improve client experience and will support our commitment to serving clients,” says Bandyopadhyay. In turn Synthesis thinks Nedbank Insurance deserves recognition for its persistence. “This is what it takes to pioneer advancements,”says Neethling. “It will be great to support Nedbank Insurance as it continues its transformation journey and client satisfaction drive.” Nedbank Insurance now wants to leverage the solution across the business. “Any electronic interaction is the next step, explains Bandyopadhyay. “All we need to do when someone calls in is to convert the voice into text – and route the call correctly. Artificial intelligence and machine learning are the ideal way for us to tap into the digital world truly to meet our clients’ needs. We are excited to delve further into the possibilities of this technology.” ai
Making sense of RECRUITMENT TECH This article forms part of a series around HR Tech and Analytics. The topic of this article is to provide an overview of recruitment technology.
When it comes to HR technology, there are two types of HR Professionals. The first group represent people who are excited about the possibilities of new technology to transform the HR profession from administrative and transactional to proactive and strategic. The second group represents people who are fearful of the disruptive nature of technology and often feel overwhelmed with the pace and complexity of modern-day HR tech.
At COGO, we believe that HR Tech should support your unique HR processes and the same can be said for recruitment tech. The diagram to the left illustrates a standard recruitment cycle. Your process might look similar with a few differences. Any adoption of technology must be planned properly by analysing the organisations’ unique recruitment characteristics. Too often we see clients discovering the next shiny software solution and then buying it without understanding how it will compliment the talent process. Now, let’s look at the same diagram but add technology and make the process better, faster and cheaper. The diagram below shows what the recruitment cycle will look like once enhanced with the latest technology. This technology can be divided into two basic groups:
The first group refers to tech that allows recruiters to make better hiring decisions. This group harnesses the power of big data and data analytics. Advanced algorithms and machine learning help the organization identify skills and employment trends that are hiding in plain sight in the terabytes of available candidate data. In the diagram below, I have highlighted where artificial intelligence can be used in the recruitment cycle. This is where specialized AI modelling analyses all the candidate data you have available and assists in making hiring decisions. Another way decision making is enhanced is through the use of AI video interviewing and social media screening assessing the candidate’s integrity. Lastly, candidate assessments of both hard skills and soft skills are increasingly being deployed online providing more depth throughout the recruitment cycle. This feeds back into Artificial Intelligence – the more data we gather from candidates, the more powerful AI become in identifying top performers.
43 The second group refers to recruitment tech that helps making the Recruitment process more efficient through automation. Many of the burdensome, repetitive activities that were performed by humans are now outsourced to machines that can perform these tasks better and faster. Continued on page 79
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WHILE YOU might identify yourself with either of these groups, the fact remains that technology is changing the way HR Professionals is managing the employee lifecycle. In this short article, we will look at the various type of recruitment technology current available.
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By Elmen Lamprecht, managing partner COGO People Analytics
NEW DATA CENTRES
in South Africa likely to bring about surge in cloud-based AI services In late April, Amazon Web Services (AWS) announced the opening of its Cape Town region. AWS said the AWS Africa (Cape Town) Region will enable developers, startups and enterprises, as well as government, education, and non-profit organisations to run their applications and serve end-users in Africa with even lower latency and leverage advanced AWS technologies to drive innovation.
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by Daniel Mpala
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THE DEVELOPMENT comes a year after Microsoft opened data centres in Cape Town and Johannesburg. What could the establishment of these data centres mean for South Africa’s AI and data science community? Fred Senekal, the head of R&D at Johannesburg-based big data and machine learning consultancy Learning Machines, predicts that many organisations will reevaluate their IT infrastructure and strategies and that we will start to see a trend to cloud migration over the next couple of years. “Coupled with this move, organisations are also likely to re-evaluate their AI and data science strategies and we are likely to see strong growth in cloud-based AI services and utilisation of online AI services,” adds Senekal. Outside of cloud-based AI services, Senekal believes that agriculture presents one of the biggest opportunities for AI in South Africa. “The agricultural sector is very much open to the application of technology and there’s a general lack of agritech companies in South Africa. Not only are there great opportunities for the application of technology in this sector, but startups can also do their bit to contribute to food security to the betterment of all,” says Senekal.
‘Automation key enabler for change in society’
Fred Senekal, Head of R&D, Learning Machines
Lionel Bisschoff, founder, Learning Machines
Learning Machine implements and maintains big data and machine learning and cloud services for some of the largest and best known organisations in South Africa. The company has traditionally focused on the financial sector with clients that include FNB, African Bank, Momentum and Discovery. The startup was founded in 2016 by Lionel Bisschoff, who Senekal says is passionate about bringing about societal change. “Over the last decade, Lionel has observed and studied the effects of automation and the changes it brings about in society. Learning Machines was born from this vision where automation is a key enabler for change in society. Our company mission statement, “Automating production, distribution and service toward a good quality of life for all,” speaks directly to this vision,” says Senekal. He further points out that society will be “significantly transformed” through the 2020’s and 2030s through the application of automation, AI and machine learning. “As a company, we want to be at the forefront of some of these changes and
improve the lives of the people of South Africa and beyond,” he adds. The company is expanding into other sectors, including agriculture, retail, mining and healthcare, where it foresees many growth opportunities in the future. “As the demand for the collection, storage, processing and management of data continues to grow, we find that many companies across various sectors are starting to realise the value inherent in their data and that they are seeking ways to unlock the value of it,” says Senekal.
Senekal says in the company’s most interesting case study, while doing work for one of its banking clients, the firm’s engineers managed to move their metric generation for credit data processing from their mainframe system to Apache Spark running on a distributed Hadoop cluster. “This allows them to process 1.35 billion metrics for millions of clients in just 23 minutes, as opposed to many days on their mainframe system. It does of course come with its own set of challenges, but is a good example of what can be achieved in big data processing when done correctly,” he says.
‘Search well enough, and you’ll find some amazin people’
‘Thought leaders in big data, data architectures and machine learning’
Senekal says that there’s much greater demand for talented people in the AI, Machine Learning and Data Science fields than there was just a few years ago. This, he points out, is likely to continue to grow and accelerate because of the 4IR, with various South African universities starting to introduce courses that aim to address this demand. The company, which currently employs a team of 12 consultants among them data scientists, big data engineers and cloud engineers, is set to grow its staff compliment to 20 people by the end of the year.
So how does Learning Machines go about sourcing scarce talent?
Senekal says South Africa has some great talent and diversity in the current skills market and that if you search well enough, you will find some very amazing people. “It is really important to us that we find the right staff for the projects we undertake and as such, we put a lot of effort into attracting the best talent available in the market. Until now, we have been lucky to find these individuals, but it is also becoming easier as our brand is getting more established,” he adds.
‘Greatest challenge creating mind shift’
Senekal explains that Learning Machines’ biggest challenge as a consulting firm is around creating a mind shift in the right individuals, to allow them to recognise their data, infrastructure and the application of machine learning as critical business assets, which he says provides the keys to competitive differentiation. “When we work with clients or prospective clients, we often find that most staff members are keenly aware of the problems with their systems and the shortcomings in their processes. They often describe in great detail the need to become datadriven organisations and to improve their current systems,” he says. But, he points out, there is often a resistance to change, usually at the level of decision makers who “have always done it in a certain way”, or do not have the time, budget or energy to effect change in their organisations.
Senekal says Learning Machines puts a lot of effort into “really understanding” current trends and best practices, as well as establishing itself as thought leaders in areas like big data, data architectures and machine learning – especially when practically applied to large scale production environments in enterprises. He adds that the firm spends a fair amount of time and money on research and development to make sure the solutions it proposes and implements are not only robust, but scalable and future proof. “What is perhaps noticeable is that many consulting firms in South Africa tend to market and sell very specific software products, especially business intelligence tools and data warehouse software. While there are of course excellent existing software tools out there, we find that there is rarely a one-size-fits-all solution in larger organisations, which tend to have their own unique problems and are dealing with multiple systems and legacy hardware. “In this regard, we are perhaps differentiated in the sense that we bring custom fit-for-purpose solutions to our clients and not clients to off-the-shelf solutions,” says Senekal. It probably helps that the consultancy regularly organises what it calls AIdeation workshops with its clients and prospective clients. During these sessions, Senekal says the firm discusses with and educates attendees on topics such as AI, machine learning, data science, data engineering, big data infrastructure, architecture, tools and trends. “The rest of the workshop is dedicated to structured innovation, where we help our clients to discuss the problems and opportunities that exist in their organisation and to identify use cases and potential proof of concepts they can build to develop their capabilities,” he adds. He says the workshops have always been met with great anticipation and enthusiasm from Learning Machines’ clients who often get the opportunity to align their thinking among themselves and discover that there are low-hanging AI fruit ready to be picked. “Of course, as Learning Machines we also get the opportunity to learn from our clients and understand the real issues companies out there are struggling with,” says Senekal. ai
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As the demand for the collection, storage, processing and management of data continues to grow, we find that many companies across various sectors are starting to realise the value inherent in their data and that they are seeking ways to unlock the value of it, - Fred Senekal
The Essence of
ARTIFICIAL
Intelligence in Africa “AI is neither good nor evil. It’s a tool. It’s a technology for us to use,” – Oren Etzioni
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BUT WHAT kind of tool is AI? Well, that’s not a question with a single answer since there is no officially agreed definition. Even AI researchers have no exact definition of AI. The field is rather being constantly redefined when some topics are classified as non-AI, and new topics emerge. The definition I present to you is based on the properties which characterise AI: Autonomy — The ability to perform tasks in complex environments without constant guidance by a user. Adaptivity — The ability to improve performance by learning from experience. In other words, a system that can function without constantly being monitored, and gets better as it does more….. sounds oddly similar to a child, doesn’t it? Imagine a time when we aren’t limited to repetitive menial tasks in our day to day life, this is a time where we can choose to be as creative as we want, a time where we are more empathetic, in other words, a time when we are more human. These are some of the grand promises we are sold about AI potential, this means that there is a potential dark side to it, but what tool doesn’t have a dark side?
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Let’s look at where Artificial Intelligence is being used in the here and now: 1.Recommendations in platforms such as YouTube, Facebook, Auto-predict: What should we show the human next? What does the human want to say next? 2. Image & Video Processing: Who/what is in that photo? Let’s turn the human into an abstract painting There is no doubt that the application of Artificial Intelligence is having a significant impact on the lives of every person, whether they know it or not. The question shouldn’t be “Should we adopt AI” anymore, it needs to be “How should we adopt and apply AI”. Dr. Elsa: an AI-powered health assistant for healthcare providers, is looking to solve the problem of a physician to patient ratio.
by Essa Mohamedali, Community Manager of Tanzania’s AI LAB
Success in creating AI would be the biggest event in human history. Unfortunately, it might also be the last, unless we learn how to avoid the risks, - Stephen Hawking
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Agrobot: a platform to help farmers get proper information and advice regarding fertilizers, tools, medicine, and diseases through a chatbot or a normal SMS message. E-Shangazi: a platform that educates, informs and advises youths on Sexual Reproductive Health Rights (SRHr). These are African projects focusing on how to apply Artificial Intelligence for the greater good of the African community. As Africans we are in a very strategic position where we can use the AI systems and frameworks developed in higher-income countries, build on it according to our specific requirements and test it directly where the needs exist. We, therefore, have a variety of opportunities to solve our challenges uniquely. With this thought, Sahara Sparks hosted a panel discussion titled “Accelerating Growth of Africa AI ecosystem” featuring: Martha Shaka (Computer Vision Researcher), Essa Mohamedali (Tanzania AI Lab), Deogratias Mzurikwao (Ph.D. Artificial Intelligence), Davis David (Data Scientist at ParrotAI), Stima Stima (Business and Data Analyst), and Paul Mandele (Dean of School of AI Tanzania). Deogratias highlighted the importance of ethics as the centre of the growth of AI in Africa. We must make sure that as the use of AI grows in Africa it remains for the good of the people. Artificial Intelligence is having a significant impact on the improvement of many sectors in Africa, but we must realize that we will be handling personal and sensitive data, the utilization of which can make or break the confidence of the people. Here lies a major question, how do we encourage the growth of Artificial Intelligence skills in Africa ethically? Continued on page 48
THE POWER OF ETHICAL ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE We give you the power of ethical artificial intelligence to turn your big data into smart data and make important decisions at lightning speed.
OMINA TECHNOLOGIES Omina Technologies is an ethical artificial intelligence company active in Europe, the US and Africa. Artificial Intelligence will transform everything from the stock market, to the energy and health care sectors, to the battle against climate change. In the retail space, AI will change the way companies approach customer expectations. Companies that implement artificial intelligence will understand their customer better allowing them to compete in an increasingly globalized market. At Omina Technologies we believe in leveraging artificial intelligence in an ethical way. We believe that artificial intelligence should be available to companies big and small. We believe that artificial intelligence should be explainable and transparent. We believe in handling data ethically and with respect for privacy. Ethical artificial intelligence is inherent in all of our AI products and services.
OUR SERVICES OMINA CORE We have developed an artificial intelligence platform combining cutting edge technology with ethical artificial intelligence principles. Companies with less data can utilize the benefits of artificial intelligence thanks to our revolutionary approach. Our user-friendly platform gives companies big and small across different sectors the ability to use AI simply and easily. Our platform works within your environment and therefore we do not take data out of its natural habitat. You can rest easy knowing we are handling your data ethically and with respect. We offer the ability to audit your algorithms and see how they have evolved over time so that you have the peace of mind that your AI is explainable and ha transparent.
OMINA ACADEMY We provide trainings for companies that want to expand their knowledge of artificial intelligence. Omina Academy provides various hands-on trainings. We give trainings that will help you understand how artificial intelligence is being used in your sector and how it can be utilized within your company. In addition we offer executive management seminars to help management understand this exciting technology and more importantly, how to leverage it within their company.
OMINA CONSULTANCY We offer strategic consultancy services to companies wanting to leverage artificial intelligence and who want to move forward in a strategic and structured way that aligns with their future vision. Our “Artificial Intelligence Readiness Assessment� helps companies understand better how they can leverage artificial intelligence, how to position AI strategically, and their strengths and weaknesses. We help them create a strategic roadmap for the future. In addition we provide artificial intelligence engineers, big data engineers, DevOps engineers, big data analysts and project managers specialised in data with experience on a multitude of platforms and proficient in different technologies ready to help your company.
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The Essence of Artificial Intelligence in Africa
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According to our panelists, it is through ensuring that all the stakeholders should be engaged and involved with the technology concerning what they provide to it. The stakeholders include: Policy Makers — Uniquely capable of taking a broad view of AI and its impacts, promoting the conditions for its growth, and addressing the challenges and questions that arise from its use. Industry — creates innovative products; provides invaluable knowledge, insight, and expertise to the government for effective policymaking; and contributes to the development of local talent and skills for Africa’s growing youthful population. Academia — Offer fertile ground where leading scientists and engineers can experiment and try out their new ideas. Civil Society — Calling attention to the ethical and social implications that must be addressed in the development of AI, ensuring that it is human-centred and capable of delivering tangible benefits for the African population.
International Community — Source of best practices and platforms for discussions at all levels from individuals to policymakers. The best way to get them all involved is by creating interest and passion at individual levels, allowing the people to learn and apply. Through this, the stakeholders will see the direct impact of Artificial Intelligence in the African story. However, the process of learning and creating can seem tiring — think of staring at a black screen for hours typing away. What is needed to grow the individual AI interest in Africa, is to learn AI by solving a challenge, a challenge that we face in our society. There exist a myriad of courses that are more personalized by focusing on the African context, using our data and our skills. It is by tapping into this mindset of solving problems, will we then begin to see the natural and rapid growth of the African AI ecosystem. “Our intelligence is what makes us human, and AI is an extension of that quality.” – Yann LeCun ai
Lockdown exposes realities of remote working “It really is that fast.” Fry says a lot of effort went into developing a smooth and fast user experience. “You can’t make it difficult for people otherwise they won’t use it,” he says. “It needs to be easy to set up and to manage. Network administrators are busy people, especially in the current circumstances, and they don’t need additional headaches, so we have made Tistro really simple to set up.” Once the initial set-up is done, line of business managers can align the data space with their business, deciding which applications can be accessed and ranking their relative importance to the task at hand. Again, this is a simple process and Little estimates that managers should take no more than an hour to do this. “It is easy to set up the system so it accurately reflects the business and, after that, the administration is minutes per day,” he says. Saucecode will generate reports based on the criteria set out by managers, giving them real-time visibility into their workforce almost immediately. Confidentiality is important, and Tistro allows the right hierarchies to be set up so data is viewed only by the correct managers and the users themselves. The company also has comprehensive tutorials and selfhelp videos on its website (www.saucecode.tech) which can help IT administrators and line of business managers to quickly set up and become productive. As an added bonus, the tool offers an accurate look into what applications are being used which can help administrators correctly manage their software licenses and potentially save money. “All of this ties into a product that is less about monitoring people and more about management, enabling users and business to work together in a trust relationship,” Little says. ai
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WHILE THE unique circumstances forced companies to quickly embrace remote working, many were completely unprepared to manage users in their homes. This is the word from Graham Fry, MD of local software developer Saucecode, who points out that remote workers have been shown to be happier and more productive – if they are managed correctly. “Plenty has been written about what workers should be doing as they adapt to the new remote working paradigm. But it’s what their managers do that means the difference between success or failure,” Fry says. There are many tools on the market that let companies monitor their workers, some quite authoritarian, Fry says. “The real value is in not monitoring your workers, but rather in managing them.” Saucecode has developed Tistro, an agent-based tool that lets managers measure productivity and helps workers to stay efficient. The company is offering free Tistro subscriptions until 30 June 2020. “As a South African company, we felt it was our duty to do something to help the country during this time of crisis, so we have made our workforce management tool available as a free subscription,” Fry says. “Tistro gives managers visibility into what workers are doing while helping to improve productivity and efficiency.” Brian Little, co-founder of Saucecode, adds that managing productivity is not something that should only happen when workers have to work at home, but the current lockdown has helped to throw the issue into focus. “What the lockdown has done is expose problems with worker management overall, and shown us that we need a different way of doing things so users can be equally wellmanaged whether they are in the office or at home.” Tistro helps managers to quickly identify which workers are performing well, which need help, and which are superperformers. They can also identify what methods or applications increase productivity and which are counter-productive. “It’s data, so it’s accurate and unbiased,” Little adds. “With a tool like Tistro you can see what is actually happening.” Companies with as few as 20 users, right up to the largest enterprises with thousands of users, can quickly deploy the free Tistro subscription and start reaping the benefits literally within an hour. Little explains the process: “Once a company requests the free offer, we set up their profile on our cloud server – which takes just 30 minutes; we then send them their user name and login and the links for the client-side agents; the manager sends these links to the workers in their team; the workers click on the link; and the agent installation takes place. As soon as its installed, the device will start reporting into the system and there is visibility into the user’s work.
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The Covid-19 pandemic and resulting lockdown has exposed weaknesses in many organisations’ workforce management practices.
MEET SILA HEALTH,
the AI-powered health-focused platform being used in 51 countries
Sila Health is an Amsterdam-based healthtech startup that uses a low-data chatbot and machine learning to provide real-time last-mile healthcare access to 20 000 users in 51 countries including Kenya, South Africa, Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, Ghana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
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by Daniel Mpala
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ZIMBABWEAN BABUSI Nyoni, who founded the company last year, says he had been sitting with the concept behind the platform since 2012. Nyoni says he had long researched ways to connect people in low and middle income households in Zimbabwe to doctors using readily available chat platforms like SMS and WhatsApp messenger. He believed the solution would likely be effective across subSaharan Africa where millions struggle with accessing basic health and medical care through traditional methods. He saw an opportunity with chat platforms, this as internet access and social media uptake has been on the rise in Africa. Last July, Nyoni took his savings and called long-time Cape Town based collaborator Robert Scott to discuss the platform he wanted to build. “We soon launched an MVP chatbot powered by a Google Sheets spreadsheets that answered a limited range of questions related to sexual health. This was only moderately successful as users of the service insisted on communicating with the bot naturally, which is something it was not built for, yet,” he says. Nyoni says advances in natural language processing (NLP) – specifically the open sourcing of Google’s BERT technique – made it feasible to create a high quality conversational experience trained on a limited data set.
“We then went away to build a market ready platform using a custom-built keyword extraction model that routes queries to modules such as Wikimedia for terminology lookup and a lowlevel NLP model for symptom triage,” he says. The startup has since grown to a total of seven staff, excluding its advisory board.
How does it work?
Sila Health’s user-facing platform uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide intermediate access to basic healthcare through the use of popular chat platforms like Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and SMS. The platform also connects young Africans to trained healthcare volunteers. “We do this through the use of a natural language processing to analyse the intent and sentiment of millions of messages at once, and by using a healthcaretrained machine learning model to provide an instant prognosis to every user synchronously on multiple platforms. “Users receive instant automated healthcare advice and have the option of reserving a free appointment with a trained healthcare services provider should their interaction require a consultation,” explains Nyoni. The startup also assists decision makers in local governments and non-governmental organisations identify methods of advancing healthcare by leveraging
comprehensive population datasets. “This is done through the collection of anonymised data and analysis of health trends in each locale giving local governments and private organisations deep, realtime insight on the spread of diseases, pandemics, and the prevalence of drug resistance. Our platform gives decision makers access to data that informs critical studies into prominent disease outbreaks such as COVID-19, Ebola, and HIV,” says Nyoni.
‘Over half a million messages exchanged’
Nyoni says access to funding could prove to be a “major blocker” to the fulfilment of Sila Health’s five year plan. “It remains to be seen whether out break-even date and our current runway will intersect. “We are constantly optimising our product to deliver as frictionless an experience as possible and having started with the user in mind, our service provision issues are thankfully few and far between,” he adds. For Nyoni, some of the most rewarding experiences of founding and running Sila Health has been the feedback from users. He points out that designing and building a successful chatbot experience for users in low to middle income households at scale can come with its challenges. “To constantly have our service rated 5 stars out of 5 while maintaining high levels of growth and impact is something we are grateful for each day,” he says.
Plans to venture into the insurtech space
Nyoni says Sila Health’s unique proximity to Africa’s remote-yet-connected patients means the healthtech startup has an “advantageous understanding” of the need of the most vulnerable at a scale “like no other”. The startup wants to use this insight to drive healthcare inclusion in the form of affordable health insurance informed by its proprietary risk assessment model for low income households. “We have a vision to harness Africa’s healthcare data in order to provide world-class healthcare to the marginalised and we look forward to bringing it to life in the coming years,” says Nyoni. ai
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‘Access to funding biggest challenge’
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To date, over half a million messages have been exchanged on Siya Health’s platform. “We have successfully managed to provide access to basic healthcare to twenty thousand users spread across over fifty countries around the world,” says Nyoni. The self-funded startup is currently conducting its initial funding round which Nyoni says will enable it to strengthen its growth as well as drive higher levels of impact. Sila Health uses an API data subscription model to generate revenue. “We extract anonymised data and analyse health trends in each locale, and provide this real-time insight to health departments and public health-focused organisations,” explains Nyoni. He says the startup has done work with the administration in his home town of Bulawayo to cocreate a series of tools optimised for a national and municipal-level COVID-19 response. “As we look to scale to our first million users we are in talks with two multi-national organisations that would like to make use of our scalable approach to healthcare access provision in remote areas,” he adds.
How to talk AI
LIKE AN EXPERT Getting lost in the latest tech talk? Don’t know your AI from your ML? Then it’s time to learn how to talk AI like an expert.
2ND QUARTER 2020
By Marais Neethling, AI Evangelist at Synthesis
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THE TERM AI/ML has become exceptionally popular but what exactly to the experts mean they refer to AI/ML? “AI/ML” is a field in computer science which tries to use computers to solve problems that were previously only “solvable” by humans. For years, computers excelled at number crunching but certain tasks, such as voice recognition (hearing), object recognition in photos (vision) and predicting behaviour of agents in unconstrained or uncertain environments, remained a challenge for programmers to overcome. Times have dramatically changed. These days, computer algorithms can perform as well or better than humans on a few narrow tasks that typically take a human between 0 and 3 seconds (rule of thumb) to perform. These tasks are usually perception tasks that don’t require deep, abstract thought by the human brain. Of course, there are contradictions to this rule of thumb. Consider generative models that write semi-coherent paragraphs of English text or compose musical scores or even invent art. However, these models arguably don’t apply “creative thinking” in the human-like way we are used to, it is merely an extension of the algorithms used in perception-based problem solving. So, what do the terms “Artificial Intelligence”, “Machine Learning”, “Deep Learning” and “Data Science” mean and what are their differences? To find the answers, we’ll delve into the history of Artificial Intelligence. The term “Artificial Intelligence” was first coined by scientists in 1956 when they arranged a workshop to bring together luminaries in the fields of cybernetics and mathematics, formal (mechanical) reasoning and other related fields of academia. Artificial Intelligence was thus used to describe this nascent field of research into board game-playing algorithms that could learn strategies, logic theorem provers, logic and inductive reasoning algorithms and early chatbots. Artificial Intelligence is the allencompassing term used to refer to the field in science trying to create human-like, intelligent agents behaving in a way that we would describe as intelligent, typically focusing on narrow solutions. “Artificial General Intelligence” or AGI is a derived term referring to an intelligence that is on par, or superior to, human intelligence and with broad applicability. Naturally, a whole host of approaches and techniques have been developed over the course of centuries to try and mimic the human thought processes. Starting with ancient mathematicians trying to formally deduce and codify the human reasoning process in symbolic form (sometimes described as Good OldFashioned Artificial Intelligence) up to recent computational
techniques such as Deep Learning. Between these extremes lies expert systems or knowledge-based systems, cybernetics (brain simulation) and statistical and sub-symbolic techniques. Machine Learning generally refers to sub-symbolical (or specialised statistical) approaches in which agents iteratively update parameters (a process called training) that will gradually shift the agent to produce the desired output from the input it receives. It basically learns to map an input - or perception to a desired output without directly codifying the rules of the mapping. Research into Machine Learning picked up in the early 2000s at the expense of symbolic approaches to AI. Deep Learning is a sub-field of Machine Learning which rose to prominence since 2012 and it has been enabled by recent advances in parallel computing power. GPUs, TPUs and elastically scalable allows for the training of models, typically Artificial Neural Networks, with billions of parameters, which used to be an intractable problem on older computing hardware. Deep Learning models have proven to be very good performers in some perception tasks such as seeing and hearing, often exceeding human performance. The success of Deep Learning has been the main reason for the resurgence in research on AI and the practical application of AI in everyday life on mobile devices and corporate business processes alike. Applications of Deep Learning range from computer vision to natural language understanding. However, as with most research fields in the artificial intelligence space, the rise and fall of research in the approaches have caught up with Deep Learning as well. The latest darling of the research community appears to be Reinforcement-Learning, the type of Machine Learning used by the AlphaGo and AlphaZero algorithms to achieve superhuman playing ability on board games such as chess and Go. Indeed, the achievements of AlphaZero has seemingly sparked the interest of the research community to pivot in the direction of Reinforcement Learning. The power of Reinforcement Learning lies in the fact that it can learn the rules and constraints of a given operating environment and figure out how to achieve success without any potentially sub-optimal imbued human knowledge or expertise. It is possible that by the time this piece reaches your social media feed, other terms will have popped into our lexicon (Transformer architecture or attention anyone?). As the world of technology and its possibilities continue to be invented at pace, so new terms are needed for discourse. If we are to keep up, we will need to be constantly aware of the changes and the language required to harness this massive potential. ai
HERE’S HOW THE CIRRUS AI initiative is planning on improving AI research and application in Africa
Last September, the Cirrus AI initiative – which aims to establish a world-class artificial intelligence (AI) capability to support research and commercialisation efforts of academia and industry on the continent, was unveiled at AI Expo Africa.
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by Daniel Mpala
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WHAT MOST don’t know is the idea behind the initiative was conceived over a decade ago, with the first formal proposal having started in 2017. Gregg Barrett, CEO of Cirrus AI, says at the time his brother, Dr Dean Barrett who works at the Brazilian Synchrotron Light Laboratory (LNLS), was looking for a way to apply machine learning to the vast amount of data they were producing. Dr Barrett was working with Wits University’s Dr Roy Forbes and it soon became apparent that Wits too had similar needs and should be incorporated into the requirement. Barrett, who in 2005 had dome some work towards establishing an innovation ecosystem in South Africa, used what he says are the five key components required for a functioning innovations system – namely; serial entrepreneurs; financiers, coaches, academic bridges and infrastructure builders – to map out specific components that would need to be built if the initiative was to be successful. “Those components included cooperation programmes with academia and industry, state of the art computing infrastructure, open learning programmes, a foundry and foundry fund,” he points out. This was then detailed in a proposal document in early 2018 and presented to Wits University. “Following meetings with stakeholders from across the university, Professor Dean Brady, Head of the School of Chemistry and Director of the Molecular Science Institute, with the support of the Deputy Vice Chancellor, Professor Zeblon Vilakazi, took the lead on pushing Cirrus forward within Wits,” say Barrett. Wits ended up becoming the initiative’s host university as well as the leader of the Cirrus Consortium which provides academic research entities throughout the continent and abroad with access to Cirrus infrastructure and resources.
‘First and largest undertaking of its kind in Africa’s history’
Barret says the work that has taken place since last September’s unveiling has been substantial. “I think some folks were thinking that following the event it would be a case of flicking a switch and bam everything is up and running. It is when you peek under the hood that you fully appreciate why this is the first and largest undertaking of its kind in the continent’s history,” he adds. Over the last few months, Cirrus AI has been scoping infrastructure requirements with input from some of the world’s leading providers. “In November 2019 we had members of the NVIDIA High Performance Computing (HPC) team visit Wits, where joint presentations were held. The session was useful because NVIDIA provided some insight into what they were doing on the research front with universities in other parts of the world,” says Barrett. Cirrus AI is looking to set up an AI-focused highperformance computing (HPC) installation that Barrett says will rank inside the top 50 of the TOP500 list. “This would make the installation the most powerful computer system in Africa by a large margin. In support of this we have been working on energy generation and storage options, cooling infrastructure and reviewing satellite imagery to find suitable sites to locate infrastructure,” he says. Cirrus AI’s plans include at least 3MWs of solar generation capacity, part of which will feed the HPC infrastructure during the day, while the remainder will be fed into storage. Cirrus AI has been exploring using options that include lithium ion batteries, flow batteries, liquid metal batteries, compressed air storage and thermal storage. “For all but one of the energy
Gregg Barrett, CEO, Cirrus
For startups, Cirrus AI has set up the Cirrus FOUNDRY. This, Barret explains, is equipped with everything needed to bridge the “Valley of Death”, that is overcoming the challenge of turning a startup idea or scientific research into a large-scale commercial application. “The business of the Cirrus FOUNDRY is building other businesses,” says Barret, who points out that it is not an incubator or accelerator. Instead, although Cirrus FOUNDRY will retain an ownership stake and have a capital fund, it also offers ideation carried out by an in-house team. In addition, an in-house staff also helps with the creation of AI products. Ultimately, Barrett says, Cirrus FOUNDRY’s objective is to build stand-alone businesses. “There are already several promising startup opportunities in the pipeline for submission to the Cirrus FOUNDRY and we have international partners that are eager for us to make submissions into their streams as well. With growing opportunities, it is now time to get things moving so that we can pull the trigger,” he says. He points out that many of the opportunities that Cirrus FOUNDRY will pursue will differ from those typical to most
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storage providers this would be a first deployment for them in Africa,” says Barrett. The facility will likely use rear door heat exchanges and indirect air-liquid-air cooling units. Barret says Cirrus AI has been using resources from facilities like the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory which is involved in the development and utilisation of HPC cooling infrastructure. “All the options we are looking at though would be a first for Africa and the provider(s) as in the case of the energy storage platform will have an opportunity to use the deployment as a reference installation in the African market and to undertake research and development with universities in the region,” he adds. Cirrus AI is also looking to get involved with FABRIC, a testbed funded by the US’s National Science Foundation for the development of the next generation internet architecture. The infrastructure will enable cutting-edge and exploratory research at-scale in networking, cybersecurity, distributed computing and storage systems, machine learning and science applications. “In a first for Africa, the intention is that Cirrus will host a ‘hank node’, thus enabling researchers in Africa to conduct their own experiments on the testbed. FABRIC is relevant and important to Cirrus for several reasons including; the role of AI in future internet technologies, and the development and testing of connectivity to research centres located across the world,” explains Barrett.
activity in the region as Cirrus FOUNDRY is equipped to pursue ventures in the hard tech space. Backing this will be the Cirrus FOUNDRY Fund, a pre-seed and early-stage fund which Barrett says will have a target capitalisation of $35-million. Part of the capital for the fund will come from the money raised to establish Cirrus AI. “For most investments, capital will be allocated at the preseed stage, with investments of up to R3.75-millon. The Cirrus FOUNDRY Fund will also follow a lead investor in seed rounds, with investments of up to R7.5-million,” says Barrett. Cirrus AI has an agreement with Cortex Group which Barrett says is looking to establish a version of Cirrus FOUNDRY in Cape Town called Cirrus FOUNDRY Cape. “At this stage the plan is to get Cirrus FOUNDRY Cape going once the Cirrus FOUNDRY operation in Johannesburg is up and running,” says Barrett. Cirrus AI was initially funded by its strategic founding partners and now generates ongoing revenue through a variety of programmes that include its Co-development programme and its Partner and Affiliate programmes. “Once Cirrus is fully operational on an annual basis the funding requirement is not at all strenuous. On the Cirrus FOUNDRY side there are several options including, successful exits of start-up businesses, running the product as a revenue generating project and selling the code or intellectual property without spinning it out,” says Barrett.
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Private sector involvement
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Several private sector organisations, he says, have expressed interest in participating in the initiative. “In all instances we have asked them to please sit tight while we conclude the process of setting everything up – and there is a lot to setup! Now that we are nearing the end of that process the investment banking team will be leading the engagement starting in the coming months,” adds Barrett. He explains that Cirrus AI is working on broad-based participation of the world’s leading multinationals. In order to support this, the initiative has been working on structures through which its partners can hold an equity position in Cirrus without having to first establish local operations, which as Barrett points out, is crucial as some of these firms don’t have a legal entity registered on the continent. He says the equity position in Cirrus is very important as the discussion doesn’t revolve around just contributing some funding, but rather active involvement. “ “This active involvement includes participation of the organisations’ respective research operation and corporate venture capital (CVC) operation. To be clear the CVC arms and the research operations of many of the world’s most successful organisations are MIA in Africa – and if we are going to get breakthroughs in research and seek returns to those research
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Whatever the delta between Africa and other parts of the world with Cirrus it will be greatly reduced, - Cirrus CEO Gregg Barrett
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efforts in Africa, we must change that,” says Barrett. Cirrus AI is working with a global investment banking team to handle the private sector engagement. “Details of the investment banking team that will be leading this engagement will be forthcoming in the next few months,” says Barrett.
Infrastructure, connectivity among main challenges
Barrett cites infrastructure, connectivity, lack of a data management platform and access to markets as the main challenges facing the initiative. He points out that currently much of the infrastructure comes from overseas firms, many of which have no presence and thus no support in Africa. “While this is a challenge it also presents an opportunity where these firms can use their work with Cirrus as a steppingstone into the African market,” says Barrett. “Connectivity is a headache and improvements need to be made both in terms of intra-continental connectivity and intercontinental connectivity. At present Africa has too few options available – a bit like an island with only a few roads carrying all the traffic. The work on FABRIC and with SFP’s will include an effort to establish more options on this front.” He stresses that there’s a clear need for a data management platform to support machine learning efforts across research domains. This, he says, is further linked to the ned to connect research instrumentation throughout Africa, as well as the establishment of a data commons that supports FAIR principles. “While the implementation of a data management platform, connecting research instruments and the establishment of a data commons are not primary objectives for Cirrus, we are well positioned to tackle these important issues and we have several ideas in the pipeline which we intend to explore.” Barrett believes the participation of multinational firms will not only enable later-stage funding for technologies developed on the continent, but also access to critical markets, which he says is particularly relevant in the hard tech space. “Keep in mind that the GDP of South Africa is roughly equivalent to that of the state of Tennessee in the US.Cirrus working with strategic founding partners and entities like Berkeley SkyDeck offers promising opportunities to get hard tech opportunities from Africa into those markets,” he adds.
‘Closing the gap’
Barrett says in 2017 as the proposal for Cirrus was being compiled, the founding team looked at the following factors; the number of published papers, number of academic papers, academic programmes on offer, technology commercialised from university technology transfer offices, venture capital activity and activity in the deep tech space to get an understanding of AI application in the hard sciences. “While Africa’s performance across the measures in general was poor, it was the performance on AI application in the hard tech space where the wheels really came off. To us this signalled a real opportunity - an opportunity to do something about it. This measure and a graphic on TensorFlow usage resonated the most in our engagements with various stakeholders.” He says there’s been little collective understanding in Africa that technology is crucial to building prosperity, with most investment targeting sectors such as natural resources. “This left Africa orphaned during the Internet Revolution but fortunately we are now seeing a change in the thinking. However, there is still way too much talk taking place with every man and his dog trying to clamber onto the AI come Fourth Industrial Revolution bandwagon. This is where Cirrus is different, we are building it.” Barrett says during a recent meeting, an international philanthropy organisation that was conducting research into the state of play in Africa told Cirrus AI that they found what the initiative was doing to be refreshing in terms of demonstrating all the details spanning intellectual property to infrastructure. “Whatever the delta between Africa and other parts of the world with Cirrus it will be greatly reduced,” he says. ai
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Barrett says initiatives like Cirrus AI are critical in keeping a lot of the research and development that is being conducted across across various scientific domains across the continent relevant. “The NVIDIA presentation I referenced earlier highlighted this and it covered the breadth and depth of work across a variety of scientific domains with universities from around the world. That machine learning is now an instrumental part of much scientific work was recently covered in a paper by Eric Schmidt and Maithra Raghu.” Suppose, he says, a scenario where a South African university wants to set up a new battery research centre. And the centre contains the necessary infrastructure to conduct battery research and that it is also staffed by the foremost researchers on the continent, Barrett says it will also need the Cirrus capabilities on the machine learning side. “You put together the capabilities of the respective operations and the result is the ability to conduct cutting edge battery research with machine learning. When this is combined with programmes in Cirrus that support intellectual property options, it becomes attractive to companies around the world driving cutting edge research in battery technology.” He adds that with the Cirrus FOUNDRY, there are then necessary structures to support commercialisation options as well as the necessary pre-seed and seed-stage funding to support a hard tech battery startup through the Cirrus FOUNDRY Fund. “Over the years I have heard some people say that South Africa is already doing this and that there are already entities in place to support this. My response is that the evidence indicates otherwise,” he says. Barret points out that simulation work that is now performed in materials science using machine learning requires considerable computing resources which don’t currently exist in Africa. “At the time of our meeting with NVIDIA in 2019 there was not a single NVIDIA DGX on the continent. Compare that to research labs in the UK and North America for example where researchers are running simulations on platforms that have HPC racks full of these units. As for other AI focused hardware vendors, we are interacting with them as well, and the story is the same.” He adds that while some people advocate for using the cloud, there are presently no cloud instances on the continent that are running this hardware. “This matters because in many cases you are dealing with huge datasets and you have to get the data to the cloud instance for processing. (This is one of the experimental topics in FABRIC). I challenge anyone to see just how long their cloud credits last, and their credit card for that matter, when they fire up and run an instance with the sort of computing power we
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‘Critical to keep African R&D relevant’
are talking about.” Barrett says for future cloud instances being established on the continent, it’s worth considering that clean and sustainable energy options need to be addressed in addition to connectivity. In South Africa, under the Intellectual Property Rights from Publicly Financed Research and Development Act, intellectual property from research and development conducted at a publicly funded university is protected and commercialised for the benefit of people of South Africa. “This means that the team conducting the research can’t just throw together a startup based on the IP and issue equity in exchange for funding. Note that Cirrus as a privately funded entity is not encumbered by the strictures imposed by the Act and has the flexibility to support various commercialisation routes whether it be the researchers wishing to pursue their innovation in a startup or an industry partner closing off some of the intellectual property in order to support further investment for development,” says Barrett.
WHY ATLAS AI’S
-Million Series A Matters to Africa 2ND QUARTER 2020
In April, Palo Alto-based and Africa-focused geospatial analytics startup Atlas AI announced that it had raised a $7-million Series-A funding round in a deal that could benefit the continent for years to come.
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by Daniel Mpala
ATLAS AI was founded in 2018 by a team of Stanford University professors that include David Lobell, Marshall Burke, and Stefano Ermon. The startup uses highresolution satellite imagery and additional data from the field to train its artificial intelligence to provide actionable economic and agricultural insights through its analytics platform. The use of earth observation and remote sensing technology is not new to Africa. Some would even argue the combination of these technologies with tools like machine learning is on the rise. Names like the hugely successful South African startup Aerobotics – and other lesser known but well-established startups like Agri
Technovation – which provides an array of precision farming services come to mind. What makes Atlas AI stand out, however, is how the firm’s data products are supporting decision makers from governments, international organisations, and NGOs on the continent with insights that range from asset wealth and consumption power to harvest forecasting. Victoria Coleman, Atlas AI’s inaugural CEO, who joined the startup last year in February after leaving her role as CTO at the Wikimedia Foundation, says the company mainly focuses on three different areas, namely economic outcomes, agriculture, and infrastructure.
Coleman notes the geo-referenced data the startup uses to train its models comes from household surveys carried out by governments, as well as from research by organisations, like the World Bank. Once the models are trained, the startup runs the satellite imagery through the models to come up with its predictions. “We predict with very high accuracy. The results that we generate in our economic well-being indicators are 70% accurate. Since there are errors in sample collection, for example because respondents to surveys forget details, Atlas AI offers higher accuracy than you could get if you could actually visit all the households in Africa and conduct standard surveys,” she adds. Atlas AI uses free imagery that the European Space Agency has collected over the years. “The estimates that we make are done on a 2 square-kilometre resolution for our economic wellbeing and infrastructure products and at the 10 square meter resolution for the agricultural product. As we begin to use higher resolution satellite imagery (Airbus, the lead investor in Atlas AI’s A Series produces imagery at 50 cm. resolution for example), our estimates will be hyperlocal and will apply across the continent,” explains Coleman. A patented bio-physical simulation model that was developed by Atlas AI’s founders at Stanford takes into account weather, rain, greenness of the crop, and other intrinsic crop properties to generate harvest estimates for the agriculture product.
The Masisyiwa Connection
Last year pan-African telecommunications, technology, and renewable energy company Econet – founded by Zimbabwean billionaire and philanthropist Strive Masiyiwa – entered into a partnership with Atlas AI that will enable Econet to expand its digital services using the startup’s data. However, this partnership predates the startup’s creation. “The partnership with Econet goes back a long time, even before the company was created,” she notes. While Strive Masiyiwa was the chairman of the board of The Rockefeller Foundation, he happened to listen to a presentation given by Lobell about agriculture in Africa. “He [Masiyiwa] was very excited about the technology he could see. Strive is a visionary and
“
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he encouraged The Rockefeller Foundation to invest in our company. So lo and behold The Rockefeller Foundation put in a $2-million seed round in the company.” Coleman adds that when she joined the startup last year, she wanted to get a better sense of how he thought the technology would be impactful on the continent. “When we started speaking, it became obvious that there were so many things we could do together. And that all culminated in a series of workshops that we had with the Econet team in Harare and a very fruitful partnership.” Coleman points out that Econet can use the startup’s data in its mobile network to decide, for example, which 3G towers would bring about more revenue if they are to operate 4G or to figure out how to position its mobile money cash-in cash-out agents for optimal coverage. She adds that the two companies may also work on creating crop-monitoring capabilities.
AGRA Partnership
Atlas AI’s other major partnership is with the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA) – which Masiyiwa is a former chairman of – which aims to increase productivity of smallholder farmers who produce a majority of the food that grows on the continent. This partnership is especially important to the startup, because of the contacts and networks AGRA has built across 13 countries in Africa. “It allows us to reach people, governments, customers, and NGOs in a much greater area than we individually as a small company could reach,” she adds. Coleman notes that the startup needs to work with others to get the impact that it wants. To date most of its work has been primarily for NGOs, international organisations, and governments. “We aspire to do commercial work with partners,” she reiterates. Continued on page 62
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So, How Do They Do It?
We bring to light that which the naked eye cannot see by staring at a satellite image, - says Coleman.
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“We bring to light that which the naked eye cannot see by staring at a satellite image,” says Coleman.
Why Atlas AI s -Million Series A Matters to Africa
Continued from page 61
What Atlas AI Aspires To Do For Africa
Since its launch, Atlas AI has done work in Kenya with McKinsey for the Kenyan government on its food balance sheet, as well as with Ethiopia (through the World Bank). The company is also exploring work in South Africa with the Peace Parks Foundation and is also expected to begin work with the Zimbabwean government in the near future. But Atlas-AI’s Series-A round will give the startup the “fuel to really do the work we need to do.” The investment will be used to build out the startup’s platform, as well as datasets that people can access when they come to the platform. “We will do maize, soy, wheat and at some point – we don’t know when – we will start doing cash crops. We have not done that yet, but it’s something we will get to.” Additionally, Atlas AI also wants to focus on building
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Victoria Coleman, CEO, Atlas AI
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infrastructure, specifically the resilience of the electric grid. “The next step is to look at electricity demand, so that if you’re a supplier of electricity, you will know where to invest. We want to do this for other services and products, and that’s precisely where we hope to work with commercial companies,” she adds. These services will include forecasting demand for products and providing companies with data that they can use to set up supply chains and better plan operations to satisfy demand. Coleman explains that the startup is focused on Africa, because “we know that’s where the need is greatest.” “Our technologies are very generic, we could use them in the United States, in South America, in Europe. But, we chose Africa. There’s a strong mission component to our work.” Check out a demo of Atlas AI’s platform at https:// www.demo.atlasai.co/ ai
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THE STORY BEHIND ONE of the first French-SA deals to be signed at AI Expo Africa
One of the highlights of AI Expo Africa 2019 was the deal signing ceremony between French tech company Immersion and South African firm Innovative Telecommunication
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From left to right Mathieu Becue, Attaché for Innovation at the Embassy of France in South Africa; Naomi Musi, director of Innovative Telecommunication, and Christophe Chartier, Immersion CEO and co-founder
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THE DEAL is among the first mutual AI trade deals to be signed between the French and a South African firm, and the signing ceremony took place at the show, then in its second year. So, how did it come about? Immersion was founded in 1994 and has grown to become the European expert in virtual reality, augmented reality and collaborative solutions for industry and research. The company, which was co-founded and managed by Christophe Chartier, has built its know-how around customised virtual reality solutions and is now developing its own products which are at the crossroads of immersive 3D, collaborative technologies, and decision-making tools. Immersion, which has 45 employees, designs and manufactures all its products in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region of France. The company has more than 500 installations worldwide, 20 patents and had a turnover of €7-million in 2019, having taken on a new strategy in 2016 to support SMEs and middle-sized companies through their digital transformation. Some of the company’s premier customers include Airbus Group, Dassault Aviation, Thales Group, PSA Peugeot Citroën and Renault. Laëtitia Richez, Immersion’s Chief Communication Officer, says in April 2019 a South African delegation visited
the company’s headquarters in Bordeaux, France. “This was possible thanks to the impulse of the Embassy and in particular Mathieu Becue (Attaché for Innovation at the Embassy of France in South Africa). Naomi Musi, director of Innovative Telecommunication – our future partner – was present, we presented her with our know-how and our collaboration and presentation software, Shariiing. We then initiated the discussion. Innovative Telecommunication officially became our partner to sell Shariiing on the South African territory during the AI EXPO event in September 2019,” explains Richez. Richez says prior to the deal Immersion did not have any clients in Africa. She adds that in parallel to its AI Expo Exhibition, Immersion received support from Business France which organised meetings to identify potential partners and distributors. “We would like to thank Pierre Corneloup and again Mathieu Becue. They guided us and gave us a better understanding of the territory, which was indispensable. Thanks to the event, we met universities, research centres and companies with whom we hope to collaborate,” says Richez. ai
Q&A:
Lack of experience major challenge in South
African AI & Data Science scene, not talent’ The artificial intelligence (AI) and data science scene in South Africa is growing, largely driven by startups and consultancies pushing out world-class innovations in AI and machine learning (ML). This growth, however, is largely dependent on, among other factors, one key ingredient –talent.
IT’S NO secret that demand for AI and ML talent has been on the rise, with most companies looking outside the country to fill these vacancies. The 2019 edition of the JCSE-IIPTSA ICT Skills Survey notes that skills associated with emerging technologies like big data, AI, ML are among the scarcest in the country. We caught up with Ryan Falkenberg, co-founder and CEO of Clevva, at the BluePrism launch event earlier this year for a wide-ranging chat which touched on AI and ML talent, the company’s partnership with BluePrism, innovation and its expansion plans, among other topics. Here’s what he had to say.
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Can you tell us about your firm in a nutshell?
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We’re a South African company founded nine years ago and our technology is a platform that allows companies to build digital workforces for their front office. So where Blue Prism is a specialist platform for digital workers that operate on the back office, typically on systems, we handle all the logic that is normally handled in human brains. For example, if you call into a contact centre, the logic contact centre agents try to use to diagnose your problem and offer the right solutions are all prescribed based on rules, policies, procedures and we’ve historically used human brains to do that. You can now use a digital workforce powered by Clevva. What’s nice about these digital workers is they can augment staff, they can be a co-worker for a contact centre agent and make them a super agent. They can answer pretty much any call without having to be trained on that call, like a GPS being navigated real time through that conversation. Those digital workers can also empower and offer a customer digital self-service through a chatbot, through an app or mobile app or web app. So we basically can offer customers consistent compliance, context relevance and customer service on any channel.
Who’s your target market and who are some of your main clients? A number of blue-chip companies in banking,
insurance, telco and gas; Wesbank, Telkom, Engen, Old Mutual Insure, and Standard Bank. We specialise in companies that have compliance challenges, that deal with complexities. So they’ve got complex products, or systems or processes and they are challenged with scale. How do you scale when your customer is expecting a consistency and a compliance? A good way to do that is to give that work to digital workers and give the customer experience work to the staff members.
What’s your take on the shortage of talent in the AI and ML space in South Africa? There is a shortage of talent and the reason being that there’s a lot of young potential that don’t have experience. Often, organisations that are startups are really run off experienced people, with few numbers that are doing amazing things. They don’t have the ability to bring in people to learn off them. And so you’re seeing medium sized to almost large organisations that are looking to fill and build sort of like a funnel of talent in their environment. That’s our challenge, we’ve got huge potential but they just can’t get job experience and it’s that that’s limiting us and not the availability of talent. So we struggle because we struggle to find experienced heads to hire in South Africa. They are a dime a dozen and very, very difficult to find and very expensive. Then there’s a gap, and there’s a huge number of people who’ve studied and really want to get in there, but it’s going to take two to three years in your company before they become valuable and its that missing middle bit that we are struggling with at the moment.
How does South African innovation in the AI and data science scene compare to the rest of the world? I think people are surprised by what’s happening in South Africa, we’re an innovative bunch. What sometimes happens is that big organisations are a bit cautious about backing South African companies for
Ryan Falkenberg, CEO and co-founder, Clevva (pictured above, middle)
Funding has always been a big challenge in the South African market. It is getting better, there are players that are really starting to look at that space. I think the trick is to always find a solution that has international potential. Funders are looking for that type of scale and what tends to happen in South Africa is that because we are quite a small market you become a generalist very quickly because you don’t have the market to serve. As a result of becoming a generalist, it then becomes difficult for you to scale internationally, you actually need to be a super specialist. So that’s always the challenge with funders, they look at technologies that are really good but maybe have become too broad and they can service the South African market but actually when they scale internationally they won’t be able to do it because they are just too broad. My sense is that we are definitely way off in getting a really thriving ecosystem. I think there are a couple of shining lights but we need to convert those shining lights into real mega-players because we’ve got such
How did your partnership with Blue Prism come about?
We were working with one of our clients who was a Blue Prism partner and client and they had a challenge with a whole lot of logic that needed to be fed to the Blue Prism digital workers and human beings were doing it and they weren’t doing it really well. So they found out about Clevva and we then built a digital worker to handle that and it works so well with Blue Prism that we then started to get introduced to the Blue Prism team. And when we realised the combination is just so incredibly powerful where us handling the front office logic and Blue Prism handling all the system back office it was an incredible harmony and as a result they asked us to be the first South African company to join their programme.
What are Clevva’s plans around international expansion and scaling? We’re on our journey now with our partnership with Blue Prism and we are also partnering with really amazing partners such as EY and Deloitte to start shaping an international play. Our strategy in the next 12-18 month is to be ready to start really going, primarily focusing on banking and insurance and probably our first venture will probably be into the UK market and then potentially to the States but we’d have to be very ready for that one. ai
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Do you think South African investors are warming up to the idea of backing AI and data science ventures?
talent coming up coming up in our youth. If we can channel that energy into being an African superpower in technology I think the sky is the limit for all of us. We need our corporate environment to support those South African companies and embrace them actively rather than only reluctantly.
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some reason and so many organisations get stuck with proof of concepts (POCs) and pilots and don’t manage to get to that final hurdle of production. So that’s always been our challenge. Innovation, creativity and thought leadership has never been a problem. If large organisations start giving those companies a chance to really move and partner with them in a bigger way, when that happens you’ll start seeing South African companies become international players.
HOW BACE API
helps businesses fight against COVID-19
2ND QUARTER 2020
For the past few weeks, we have all been on alert. In December 2019, an unknown virus from the coronavirus family appeared in central China. And since then drastic quarantine and disinfection measures have been put in place. Unfortunately, the virus is now spreading all over the world paralysing entire countries, causing psychosis and shaking the world economy.
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COVID-19 spreads through contact of the hands with infected surfaces and then with the mouth, nose or eyes. Depending on temperatures and humidity, the virus can survive for a few hours or even a few days on various surfaces, if they are not disinfected. At a press conference in March Lothar Wheeler, the president of the German Institute Robert Koch — the institution responsible for disease control, said “the pandemic is developing in waves. This is what we know for sure. But how fast are these waves going? And when will this pandemic infect 60 to 70% of the world’s population? It can last for years. We are going over two years ”. Could the Covid-19 pandemic last two years? Scary? Yes, when we know that we live in an ecosystem, where we are constantly in contact with objects and humans. States have decided to close public places, schools, airports, and even borders to prevent the virus from spreading further. In response to this pandemic, people are adhering to a strict mode of hygiene to protect their health and to avoid displacement. What about businesses? Will they accept to end their operations or will they opt for solutions that do not require physical contact? In the wake of the spread of Covid-19, a call for ideas and proposals in combating this pandemic has been sent to companies, developers, startups, and players in the tech ecosystem. This article will focus on the use of facial recognition, highlighting the use cases of BACE API as an effective solution for businesses to run their online services, financial services, and secure travel operations. The BACE API is a piece of software that uses facial recognition powered by artificial intelligence, which allows various companies to remotely verify the identity of their customers while providing access to their services.
Facial recognition, which is part of biometric technologies, makes it possible to recognize a person with precision. The facial recognition process collects points on the face that are measured to create a digital code called a faceprint, which represents the face in a database.
Banks and mobile money
Banks and mobile money: The financial landscape has experienced various fraudulent practices that have left most companies with no choice but to be strict about KYC (Know Your Customer) compliance. Customer due diligence is therefore relevant in ensuring that financial institutions comply with the requirements of applicable laws and regulations, to provide them with the products or services requested to protect against fraud, including usurpation and identity fraud. To avoid further spread of Covid-19, we are being asked to remain within the confinement of our homes and avoid unnecessary movements. • How can we open remote bank accounts? • How can we create a mobile money account remotely? These questions are very much relevant in this current situation caused by Covid-19. The good news is that we provide effective and relevant solutions using the BACE API. When implemented, BACE API allows financial institutions and telecommunication companies to receive and validate customer’s documents online. Then verify customers’ identities in real-time via a simple selfie.
ATM and cash withdrawals
Covid-19 could create a financial crisis. While few ATMs are still functional, others have been closed to avoid increasing the risk of infecting others when touching the machine during withdrawals. People who are becoming more worried about the shortage of cash, should not delay in making large cash withdrawals. A reliable facial recognition software can be adopted as an alternative to validate one’s identity before withdrawing money from any ATM. For instance, ATM’s can simply integrate with BACE API to facilitate cash withdrawals without exposing customers to any risk of infection while creating a climate of trust during withdrawals. To implement this, the companies should install a camera and allow the customer to make a withdrawal request via their smartphone, then validate the withdrawal using their face and collect their cash from the ATM. A process that looks complex but would make withdrawing money simple and secure. Continued on page 70
What is the big deal about
PEOPLE ANALYTICS? This past week, I had conversations with 9 CEO’s of large South African Corporates (5 of them listed on the JSE) and only two of them grasped the critical need for People Analytics. Yes, only 2 out of 9 CEO’s believe People Analytics is worth investing in.
“
CEO’s have no real-time information about how happy their employees are, or which employees are likely to leave next, or what the skills gap are between current skills and skills needed to implement the current business strategy. How ironic, since most companies profess that people are their most important asset.
The choice is yours.
If you want to know more about using Advanced People Analytics to improve your business, please reach out to COGO People Analytics. Also, watch out for more articles, videos and infographics about HR Tech from COGO People Analytics. COGO People Analytics is Africa’s No 1 HR Analytics advisory. We offer HR Tech and HR Analytics consultancy services, while our development of HR Analytic Tools (such as advanced HR Reporting which includes Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) and HR Virtual Assistants (Chatbots) remain our flagship products.
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”
people and placed HR right in the middle of science. The benefits of People Analytics are numerous. Research by IBM and MIT showed that companies that invested in advanced People Analytics (up to predictive and prescriptive analysis) had 8% higher sales growth, 58% higher sales revenue per employee and 24% higher net operating income than their peers. A study by Gartner showed that People Analytics boost gross profit margins by 4% and drive talent outcomes by up to 23%. And the HRO Today Institute found that companies that use employee performance data to improve recruitment outperform competitors 58% of the time and by up to 200%. Looking at all these facts, I have one thing to say to South African CEO’s: You have a choice between two options. Option 1: Invest in People Analytics now and watch your bottom-line grow. Option 2: Keep ignoring the power of People Analytics and try explaining to your shareholders in 5 years’ time why your peers are outperforming you on every business metric.
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FROM EXPERIENCE, I can say that this small sample is roughly representative of the South African landscape. Whenever I’m asked to deliver a keynote address on People Analytics, I make it a point to understand the current capabilities within the delegates’ companies. Often, most delegates have not even started implementing People Analytics in any form, while a large number do not even have the basic HR systems in place to enable data analysis. So, if most South African CEO’s clearly do not believe in People Analytics, why the big fuss over this globally? The father of Business Management, Peter Drucker, is often quoted as saying that “you can’t manage what you can’t measure.” For this reason, businesses are obsessed with measuring every part of the business – well, almost every part. While companies have spent millions on building their capabilities to measure and manage their finances, business operations and sales, Human Resource departments often must beg for funds just to send their team on Excel training. CEO’s have access to reports that give them a real-time overview of their cash-flow, production activities and sales. Additionally, these reports often have predictive capabilities, providing forecasting information for the next 3, 6 or 12 months. Yet, CEO’s have no real-time information about how happy their employees are, or which employees are likely to leave next, or what the skills gap are between current skills and skills needed to implement the current business strategy. How ironic, since most companies profess that people are their most important asset. I think it is time that we all call out these CEO’s for their hypocrisy… Human behaviour – like any other activity – can be measured, assessed and improved. Admittedly, years ago HR Departments did not have the tools to measure, assess and predict their employees’ behaviour. But the exponential advancements in software, hardware, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and the Internert Of Things (IoT) has made it quite possible for companies to predict future People Behaviour. For example, IBM’s AI can now predict with 95% accuracy which employees are about to quit their jobs. Similar breakthrough is Recruitment, Succession Planning and Learning & Development has taken away the mystery of managing
By Elman Lamprecht, Managing Partner COGO People Analytics
E4 appoints
FIKILE SIBIYA as new CIO
South African fintech software specialist e4 has appointed Fikile Sibiya as its new Chief Information Officer.
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THE JOHANNESBURG-BASED company said in an announcement in April that the appointment comes as part of its continuous focus on investing in its internal infrastructure. e4 specialises in digital transformation across the financial services, data and legal sectors. The firm said Sibiya will oversee the vision, leadership, development and implementation of IT initiatives for the company. “Central to my new role will be aligning core technology decisions and investments to the objectives of the organisation, while also ensuring we continuously deliver a stable, robust and secure platform for our clients,” said Sibiya. Prior to her appointment, Sibiya was an IT executive in the CTO office at Rand Merchant Bank where she worked for 12 years, this after joining the company as a business analyst in 2007. She’s also worked with Microsoft and has over her career held positions that extend across software consulting, demand management and team leadership. “I spent the last three years at Rand Merchant Bank as an IT Business Manager supporting the central IT CTO to fulfil the department’s strategic objectives. This role deepened my love for technology as a strategic business enabler,” said Sibiya. She says her appointment at e4 is an opportunity to work
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with one of the most advanced and fast-growing leaders in business digitalisation.“I look forward to using the knowledge I have gained over the years to contribute to the successful growth of e4,” she adds. Cloud computing, Artificial Intelligence, Big Data and how these are leveraged to realise operational and strategic value for organisations have been some of the technology highlights for Sibiya over the past decade. “We have seen significant benefits from these technologies such as mobility, flexibility and security,” she says. Sibiya – who believes that technology has become an integral part of humanity – says that how internal and external clients experience technology will remain critically important. “The usability, intuitiveness, availability, accessibility, security, robustness and seamlessness of platforms need to be aimed at enabling and unlocking the most satisfying user experience,” she adds. Grant Phillips, CEO, e4, says that Sibiya’s appointment is well timed for the company. “e4 is in a significant growth and diversification phase. We are extremely pleased to welcome Fikile in what will be a vital role within the company. Strengthening our governance and internal organisational structures are key initiatives and we have no doubt that she will add tremendous value,” says Phillips. ai
How BACE API helps businesses fight against COVID-19 Continued from page 68
Security and airports
The most common means of biometric verification is fingerprints. However, the prevention of Covid-19, which requires non-contact with objects, has forced companies to close their doors or deactivate access control within their companies. Too bad for businesses that expose their employees and services to insecurity risks (theft, assault, identity theft, etc…). In place of fingerprint, it would be wise to use facial recognition which does not require any physical contact with the camera. A few months ago, the media announced the use of facial recognition at airports for boarding in some countries. Today this solution could reduce the number of people infected with Covid-19. Indeed, the integration of BACE API in airports could facilitate the identification of passengers and above all avoid unnecessary long waits.
Transport companies
The Covid-19 should not close the opportunities for companies to develop and recruit drivers. Innovative companies such as Uber, Yango, and Bolt, have the possibility of recruiting more drivers via BACE API integrated into their platforms. Drivers will have to submit their documents such as identity card, driving license and vehicle documents online. Then verify that they are the owners of its documents using BACE API-liveness detection. Note that in Ghana, we ensure the authenticity of these documents from a reliable source. BACE API can be used and adapted in different industries. As a business, the most important thing is to understand the value of facial recognition and take action. There is no need to create a panic environment and stop your activities. To check out the possibility of implementing BACE API in your business, contact our team and above all give new technologies a chance to transform your business offerings. Together we can fight the Covid-19 and create a climate of trust. ai
THE FFR PROJECT & AI Research in Africa
“African intellectuals must do for their languages and cultures what all other intellectuals in history have done for theirs.”
THE ABOVE statement by the African writer Ngugi wa Thiong’o, inspired the duo us to go into research in African NLP (natural language processing in African languages). Natural language processing is a branch of artificial intelligence (AI) that involves human languages. As far back as the Asmara Declaration in January 2000, when scholars came together to discuss the future of the African culture and the role of African languages in speaking for the continent, we have seen that it is important for African languages to take on the duty and challenge of speaking for the continent. This responsibility of strongly and proudly representing Africa, in her original form, is also taken up in AI. We’re both final-year mathematics students at the Institute of Mathematics and Mechanics at Kazan Federal University in Russia. We found our passion in AI as undergraduate students and began to take on projects to explore it, leading us to take on various projects encompassing the fields of computer vision, automatic-speech recognition, machine translation, and game optimisation. Dossou, from Benin Republic, has developed BD97 Places: Deep Convolutional Neural Networks for Places Detection – a system that helps to detect a user’s location from a picture. The AI system is currently in use in eight places around the world. He has also worked on F-SER20, a system that helps to recognise emotions from real-life speech, and has also among many of his other developments, worked on a face-genderage recognition system.
The FFR Project
The objective of the FFR Project is to create a translation
model from Fon, a very low-resource and tonal language, to French, for research and public use. In our paper FFR v1.0: Fon-French Neural Machine Translation, which was presented at the AfricanNLP Workshop, ICLR 2020, we describe the creation of a large growing corpora for Fon-to-French translations and the FFR v1.0 model, trained on this dataset. The dataset and model are made publicly available on our Github to promote further machine translation research in Fon. This translation service is meant to promote better communication in Fon: people and companies can make use of the translation service to translate texts and messages from Fon to French, while researchers can transfer the ideas and model presented in the research to other African languages, since Fon shares tonal and analytical similarities with the Niger-Congo languages, which is the largest group of African languages comprising widely spoken languages like Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba and Swahili. Their FFR project has received acclaim from BBC Africa, Voice of America, Afropreneuriat, and Radio France Internationale. This truly unexpected success pushes us to improve their project by gathering more data, creating a website to host their translation service to all, designing a keyboard (for phones and computers) to make it easier to type in Fon. Combining our strengths, we’ve have teamed up to form edAI, to jointly tackle further AI-related challenges in Africa, and the world in general. ai
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by Chris Emezue and Bonaventure Dossou
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Left to right, Bonaventure Dossou and Chris Emezue
Applying Data Science to Mindsets & Behaviours
Mindsets and behaviours account for up to 40% of performance
Mindsets and behaviours predict performance
Mindsets and behaviours are strengthened
Deliver bottom line outperformance
workforce.olsps.com
+27 21 702 4666
CO-FOUNDER OF GHANAIAN Fintech BACE Group among authors of FINTECH Circle’s The AI Book
Charlette N’Guessan, the Ivorian co-founder and COO of Accra-based fintech startup BACE Group is among the 83 authors of FINTECH Circle’s The AI Book which was launched in April by US publisher Wiley. by Daniel Mpala
‘Picked out of 170 applicants’
‘A key to understand and open the door of the AI industry’
N’Guessan’s chapter in The AI Book is about AI opportunities in the African financial sector. “It is about 1200 words long and highlights some of the challenges facing financial institutions and the efforts of African startups in the digitalization process of financial services, and finally, points to several innovative solutions that are leveraging AI as a means of further developing the African financial sector,” she explains. “The AI Book is really important for any AI community because it is a book based on different thoughts and insights from leaders, entrepreneurs, and experts from the tech and financial industry across the world. It is an excellent project based on collaboration, A key to understand and open the door of the AI industry,” adds N’Guessan. The AI Book is available on Amazon ai
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N’Guessan, who holds a degree in Electronic and Software Engineering, says she’s passionate about solving problems through technology. “I am enthusiast for advanced technologies such as AI and facial recognition. I am also a writer, especially for topics related to technology and businesses,” she says. N’Guessan, who points out that she’s active and involved in the tech industry, she was put on to the writing opportunity by a member within her network. “A member of my network shared the opportunity and I was curious enough to click and apply, then be selected out of 170 applications to be featured in the book. It is an honour for me to see my contribution published in The AI Book. “It gave me more confidence as a female tech entrepreneur to do more research and share more insights about the use of AI in emerging markets,” she says, adding that she’s open to any form of collaboration and research based on AI use cases.
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THE BOOK, which FINTECH Circle – Europe’s first fintech-focused angel network – has described as the artificial intelligence handbook for investors, entrepreneurs and fintech visionaries, is the first crowdsourced book on the application of AI across the financial services sector. The AI Book brings together top entrepreneurs, investors and AI experts, who exclusively share their visions and unique insights on the nature of AI, machine and deep learning, AI solutions for finance, regulations as well as ethical considerations and projections as to the future of the technology and how it will impact our lives and our jobs. N’Guessan founded BACE Group in 2018 together with CEO Samuel Sowah Mensah and Ugwu Arinze Christopher. The startup has developed BACE API, an application programming interface (API) that uses facial recognition powered by AI to enable financial institutions to verify their customers’ identities remotely. “Our API is built on high-security standards and we believe that BACE API will help financial institutions to fight against fraud and give to local citizens more access to financial services in the most secure way possible,” she points out.
4IR DEMANDS reskilling workforce
While automation and digital technologies are disrupting the workplace as we traditionally know it, it has become imperative for organisations to start reskilling their workforce.
2ND QUARTER 2020
by Garsen Naidu, Country Manager at Cisco South Africa
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AUTOMATION AND artificial intelligence are not only disrupting the assembly lines but right across the so-called blue-collar jobs. This is mainly because in most instances, artificial intelligence (AI), is actually doing a better job than humans. For example, the use of virtual assistants in the workplace is growing. By 2021, Gartner predicts that 25 percent of digital workers will use a virtual employee assistant on a daily basis. This will be up from less than two percent in 2019. All these changes are also bound to induce uncertainty, anxiety and increased stress levels among employees, especially mid-career professionals, about their future. Not only are jobs being shaken up by AI but entire industries are facing massive changes, thanks to the power of technology. According to a recent report by McKinsey, 30% of jobs globally could be automated in the next 15 years. That number is even higher in industrialised countries such as the US, where as many as 73 million jobs could be disrupted. A 2019 Deloitte Global Human Capital Trends report revealed that in South Africa, business leaders are open to digitalisation of work in order to reach company goals. An Accenture study also indicates that 35 percent of all jobs in South Africa – almost 5.7 million jobs – are currently at risk of total automation. With a fragile economy and growing unemployment,
especially youth unemployment, further job losses in South Africa could have a crippling effect. Therefore, organisations need to future-proof workers from technological change and help economies by providing new skills for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. Cisco’s Networking Academy has impacted 10.9 million people across the world by up-skilling them to equip them to be the workforce of the future. Through providing trainings in networking, cybersecurity and IoT among other courses, Cisco is changing the world – one student at a time. In South Africa, in the past 22 years, more than $21-million has been invested towards developing IT skills via the 138 local Academies where 16,500 students have been trained in the recent academy year. The World Economic Forum recently launched its Reskilling Revolution, a multi-stakeholder initiative aiming to provide better education, new skills and better work to a billion people around the world by 2030. The Reskilling Revolution platform has been designed to prepare the global workforce with the skills needed to futureproof their careers against the expected displacement of millions of jobs and skills instability as a result of technological change. It is also designed to provide businesses and economies with the skilled labour needed to fulfil the millions of new roles that will be created by the Fourth Industrial Revolution, shifts in the global economy and industrial transitions towards sustainability. As organisations empower and enable employees, thanks to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, employee engagement is critical. This is a time when employees are working from anywhere because of the power of mobile technologies. Cisco defines employee engagement as the connection that employees feel to the company’s vision, strategies, and business execution, together with their commitment to helping us realise our objectives over time. The adoption of new and existing technologies over the coming years will trigger shifts in the workforce and create demand for new skills required for new and even current jobs. The challenge is for industry and government to come together to solve the issue of skills gaps by skilling and reskilling the workforce. ai
AFRICAN ACADEMICS LAUNCH initiative to collate COVID-19 data across Africa, call for volunteers
2ND QUARTER 2020
Computational epidemiologist and Assistant Professor of Global Health at Boston University Dr Elaine Nsoesie and University of Pretoria Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer Science Dr Vukosi Marivate in March launched an initiative to collate Covid-19 data across Africa and are calling for volunteers to join the project.
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THE FIRST confirmed case of COVID-19 in Africa was reported in Egypt on 14 February. The patient was a Chinese national who had recently arrived in Cairo. As of 27 March, more than 2,400 cases have been reported across Africa. South Africa, Egypt and Algeria have the highest number of cases – 927, 495, and 367 cases, respectively. Most African countries are reporting new cases every day. Earlier this year, a group of epidemiologists led by Dr. Moritz Kraemer at Oxford University started collating data on the epidemic in China. This effort has grown to include contributions from around the world. As part of this global effort, Dr Nsoesie and Dr Marivate have put together a team of more than twenty volunteers from across Africa to develop an open dataset of cases as they are reported. The dataset includes patient demographics, date of diagnosis, location, symptoms, travel history, source of information and other necessary information. The location data is at the city, town or village level, and does not include household geographical coordinates so as to preserve individuals’ privacy. The initiative obtains the data from official sources such as the World Health Organisation, Ministries of Health and Africa CDC, as well as unofficial sources like online news sites. These data have many uses. It can help us understand the spread of the SARS-COV-2 in Africa, epidemiological characteristics of cases and how it compares to reports in other parts of the world. The data can also be used in models to study the impact of various interventions, such as social distancing and for making recommendations on resource allocation. For example this dashboard developed by Dr Marivate and colleagues provides a picture of COVID-19 in South Africa, based on currently available data. The data collation initiative is calling for more volunteers who can help in collating data. Data collation can be a tedious effort for a few people, but many contributors will make the task easier. Those interested in joining this effort can send an email to onelaine@bu.edu and also look at Github Repo for additional instructions. The initiative is also looking to support data collection efforts by Ministries of Health (MoH) in Africa by connecting them with volunteers in Africa. Volunteers with technical and public health expertise can support the collection, organisation, and visualisation of relevant data on MoH websites. The rapid increase in new cases is putting a
significant burden on the health ministries and impacting the reporting of data. This is understandable because MoHs are addressing multiple challenges at this time – including tracking, testing, and quarantining cases – while implementing social distancing and other public health measures to control the local epidemics. We want to encourage everyone to follow the advice of public health experts and clinicians who are dedicating their time and lives to fighting this pandemic in Africa. Stay safe and healthy,” said Dr Nsoesie and Dr Marivate. In another example of Africa’s AI community taking on the COVID-19 pandemic, data science competition platform Zindi and Ghana’s Runmila AI Institute launched two separate initiatives seeking AI and data science solutions that will help fight the diseases. Zindi launched a challenge sponsored by the Artificial Intelligence for Development-Africa Network (AI4D-Africa) which asks data scientists to build an epidemiological model that predicts the spread of COVID-19 throughout the world over the next few months. The platform says the solutions will be evaluated against future data. The challenge, titled AI4D Predict the Global Spread of COVID-19, was launched on 13 March, with submissions closing on19 April. Winners will be revealed on 8 June. Accra-based Runmila AI Institute’s AI4COVID-19 initiative is developing a series of interactive graphs to help in mapping out the pandemic. The graphs will be updated daily according to recorded changes. ai
BUILDING AI for Success
87% of all data science projects never make it into production. Millions of dollars spent on artificial intelligence (AI) goes to the drain. If this continues, soon companies will stop spending money on AI. How to solve this problem? In this article, we will explore what causes the failures and how can organisations build AI for success. by Rudradeb Mitra, founder Omdena, with contribution from Michael Burkhardt
What causes AI Failures?
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Reason 1: AI teaams work in silos Real-world problems cannot be solved only by engineers. To build real-world solutions ones need to involve people from all backgrounds, domain experts, and users — something that AI teams often don’t do.
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Reason 2: Absence of diversity leads to bias We have seen that systems developed only by engineers end up being biased. A “diversity disaster” has resulted in flawed systems that amplify gender and racial biases according to a survey, published by the AI Now Institute, encompassing more than 150 studies and reports. The report summary says an overwhelmingly white and male field has reached ‘a moment of reckoning’ over discriminatory systems. Reason 3: Too much focus on Data Although it sounds strange as Data is the new Gold but too much focus on data is also the cause of failures. Many organisations, who have access to a lot of data, ask the question — What can we build with the data? This is a route to disaster because they restrict their solutions to the data they have (which can be also biased). For example, when Amazon built an AI recruiting system, they used the data from the existing hiring practices and the algorithm ended up being sexist. Organisations need to ask, ‘What problems we need to solve using AI?’ and then try to find data (either in-house or external) to help build solutions for the problem.
So how to build AI for success?
1. Foster collaboration Most of today’s challenges need collaboration across multiple departments and domains. To find solutions we need people from different departments and backgrounds to come together, share their data, and build solutions. 2. Following a bottom-up model to enable creativity The future of AI is bottom-up, where people who face the challenges, come together to collaborate and solve the problems. They have both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to solve the problem, which is essential in building solutions. Innovation happens by combining a diversity of thought with a safe environment where information exchange happens easily and openly. This high degree of diversity not only prevents biased solutions but also enables breakthroughs via fast iteration cycles and constant perspective sharing. With a bottom up approach, those who are more involved with the specifics of their field are included in the ideation and brainstorming process, with the result being a more harmonised and inclusive development system. Rigid top-down management principles or winnertakes-all approaches create the wrong incentives for a world where solidarity and teamwork are more important than ever. 3. Work closely with domain experts Most real-world problems are not limited to just a data science problem but require domain experts to create
5. Build ethical systems through collaboration One of the biggest difficulties for AI or ML products is a lack of trust. Essentially, one of the most fundamental values of doing business and providing value to customers is trust, and Artificial Intelligence is the mostheavily debated technology when it comes to ethical concerns and related trust issues. Trust comes from involving different opinions and parties in the entire development phase, which is usually not done in the prototype phase. Many failed AI applications have shown us where fast and intransparent development can lead to. Examples cited include image recognition services making offensive classifications of minorities, chatbots
6. Integrate with an older system This is another reason why most AI systems fail. Traditional organisations have numerous systems, processes, and thus numerous failure points. Questions like, ‘How to create awareness for the solution?’, or ‘How to integrate with older systems?’ need to be answered. Collaboration between different teams is key to ensure nothing breaks when a new solution is implemented. Teams can also leverage each other’s work to further their AI transformation, which can only occur if diverse stakeholders are involved early in the process. Human first, technology second In conclusion, I am arguing: All of us interested to build an inclusive future, need to think more holistically to create an environment beyond gender, race, and cultural backgrounds and focus on how we can collaborate as humans. Digitisation and AI have enormous potential for doing good in all aspects of life and in all sectors of the economy. However, it is the combination of people with technology that truly enables progress and higher productivity. We have to emphasise community and purpose. That is the key to create meaningful innovation and products. ai
Making sense of RECRUITMENT TECH Continued from page 43 In the diagram, I have indicated when automation tech such as chatbots and artificial assistants can be used in the recruitment cycle. A special mention must be made about the amazing advancements by Applicant Tracking Systems (ATS) in the past years. For a very long time, Applicant Tracking Systems were basically an electronic tool to ‘push papers’ from one part of the recruitment process to the next. Modern ATS’s function more like sales CRM systems, turning them into candidate relationship management systems, empowering the recruiter to
do much more in less time . If you want to know more about Recruitment Tech please reach out to COGO People Analytics. Also, watch out for more articles, videos and infographics about HR Tech from COGO People Analytics. COGO People Analytics is Africa’s No 1 HR Analytics advisory. offer HR Tech and HR Analytics consultancy services, while our development of HR Analytic Tools (such as advanced HR Reporting which includes Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning) and HR Virtual Assistants (Chatbots) remain our flagship products. ai
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4. Close data silos In many organisations, individual teams don’t have access to all the data because of cultural reasons or a lack of integrated systems (e.g. Wealth and Retail banking don’t share the same systems). However, one of the central mantras of machine learning is “more data is better”, and a collaborative environment will stimulate data sharing right from the start breaking old-fashioned structures.
adopting hate speech, and Amazon technology failing to recognise users with darker skin colours. To solve these problems, a collaborative environment of product development involving all the stakeholders serves as a validation testbed before putting the solution out into the world.
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value. Domain experts work in a constant exchange with the AI teams to help the company refine the problem, prepare the data, and build a solution that is applicable in their context. Something which goes beyond domain expertise is to incorporate people who faced the problem. This brings empathy and can help to reduce bias.
AI AND CORONAVIRUS POLICIES: Impact on the Economically Vulnerable 1.5 billion people across the globe have been urged to stay home to halt coronavirus spread. What will that mean for the economically vulnerable?
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By Laura Clark Murray
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GOVERNMENTS AROUND the globe have made halting the spread of the coronavirus their top priority. With ever-morestringent policies of social distancing and quarantines, local and global industries are shutting down. As normal life grinds to a halt, those in the informal economy and on the economic margins are expected to be especially hard hit. Omdena, in partnership with the UN AI for Good Global Summit and others, is launching an AI project to provide data-driven analysis around these complex issues to guide policymakers. Experts recommend that people stay at home, stock up on food and supplies and work remotely. “But there’s a key problem with that advice: A lot of low-income people can’t afford to follow it,” says Time’s Abby Vesoulis, in “Coranavirus May Disproportionately Hurt the Poor — And That’s Bad for Everyone”. “Workers in the informal economy may not have the luxury of staying at home without paid sick leave. People living in or near poverty often lack disposable cash and cannot easily stockpile food.” according to Viday Diwakar, Senior Research Officer of the Overseas Development Institute (ODI). In her article
“From Pandemics to Poverty: the Implications of Coronavirus for the Furthest Behind” she continues, “Hunger, malnutrition, pneumonia and other forms of health-related shocks and stresses compound vulnerability to the virus and contribute to a vicious cycle of disease, destitution, and death.” In this Coronavirus Policy AI Challenge, a global community is collaborating to build AI models that reveal the direct and indirect impact of pandemic policies on the economic health of marginalized communities. Our aim is to support policymakers in identifying the most effective ways to minimize the
economic suffering of those most vulnerable. Omdena is an innovation platform for building AI solutions to real-world problems through global collaboration. The global leader in Collaborative AI, our partners include the UN World Food Programme, the UN Refugee Agency and the World Resources Institute. With this challenge, we’re partnering with the UN AI for Good Global Summit, PWG, Amazon Web Services, AI for Peace, Fruitpunch AI, LabelBox and others. Have some expertise on these issues? We’re looking for policy and domain experts to join the two-month challenge. Please email us at contact@omdena.com ai
Making data intelligent
CAN BE EASY
Data is the lifeblood of most organisations nowadays, it’s the fuel to drive the engine of sustainability and growth. Without data, an organisation cannot monitor its processes nor its client and supplier interactions.
(calling APIs and SDKs) into a concise, combined functionality. The solution should focus on several key factors: 1. Simple – does the solution provide a simple user interface that any technical resource can utilise, or is it a development tool that is too complicated to use 2. Nimble – does the solution allow you to run with solutions quickly. The days of long-winded 6 month integration projects are long gone. Organisations need to iterate quickly to keep pace with the fast moving market. 3. Powerful – the solution should allow for powerful manipulation of data and should cater for any sized organisation. It should be truly scalable. Critically, the solution should be well priced and accessible through the life-cycle of integration. So the solution should scale in price as the requirements grow. Automate your data movement. Feed the data hungry solutions. ai
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BUT HOW does a company get access to this data easily? The industry bandies about terms like ‘democratisation of data’, but how does one truly allow the right people to get access to the right information at the right time? Artificial Intelligence (AI), Business Intelligence (BI) and Machine Learning (ML) are incredible tools used by many organisations to structure their data for real commercial benefit. The challenge is providing these data hungry tools with the data to enable this intelligence. This is one of the major challenges facing vendors that provide these tools and solutions. It is also an industry wide struggle to source the right data and to feed it into these tools and then make it easily accessible. There are many integration and Extract Transform Load (ETL) solutions in the marketplace to make this data access easier. The key is to look for a solution that combines data movement (being ETL) and integration
2ND QUARTER 2020
by Martin Naude, founder and CEO of Synatic
FRONTIER TECHNOLOGIES are key tools to
combat climate change
2ND QUARTER 2020
Latest ITU/UN report highlights potential of eight key technologies to meet Sustainable Development Goal 13
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FROM CUTTING emissions in cities to natural disaster risk reduction, smart water management and precise climate monitoring, frontier technologies in fields such as artificial intelligence, 5G and robotics demonstrate considerable potential to support the battle against climate change, highlights a new International Telecommunication Union(ITU) / United Nations (UN) report, Frontier technologies to protect the environment and tackle climate change. The report was released on 22 April to mark the occasion of Earth Day 2020. The UN report investigates eight fields of innovation: Artificial intelligence (AI), Internet of Things (IoT), 5G, clean energy technology, digital twin, robotics, Space 2.0 technologies, digitalisation, and Big Data. “COVID-19 has made clear that we are all interconnected and that our response must be collective, across countries and sectors and that information and communication technologies (ICTs) have an important role to play in accelerating solutions. How we respond to climate change, as one humanity, must follow the same principles,” said ITU Secretary-General Houlin Zhao. “This report is a call to action for governments, civil society, academia, the scientific community and the technology industry to join UN agencies in their effort to leverage frontier technologies to tackle the urgent climate crisis, “ added Zhao. The report offers case studies exploring applications of frontier technologies to reduce air pollution and manage e-waste, support smart water and energy management, generate clean energy, model ‘digital twin’ cities for disaster risk reduction, support smart agriculture and food security, and monitor our planet’s climate and biodiversity. The report emphasises the overarching goal of this
innovation, the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, in particular SDG 13 on Climate Action. It also highlights the potential of frontier technologies to support the achievement of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) Paris Agreement’s goal of limiting global warming to 1.5°c above pre-industrial levels. The report concludes with observations and recommendations for the rollout and adoption of frontier technologies. These conclusions, ITU said, encourage us to plan for the future, today.They recognise the potential of frontier technologies to assist countries in ‘leapfrogging’ economic and social activities known to be detrimental to our environment. But they also caution that frontier technologies are not a panacea – their success in combatting climate change will call for government support to climate action, inclusive innovation engaging all stakeholders, global access to new technological capabilities, and applications of frontier technologies at the scale necessary to achieve global impact. The report was developed by ITU together with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO); UN Environment; United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC); United Nations Global Compact; United Nations Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO); United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat); United Nations Entity for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women (UN-Women); and with the support of United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE). View or download the report here ai
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