Synapse - Africa’s 4IR Trade & Innovation Magazine - Show Edition Issue 21

SHOW EDITION 2023 | ISSUE 21

SYNAPSE Africa’s 4IR Trade & Innovation Magazine

JOHANNESBURG WELCOMES AI EXPO AFRICA 2023 AFRICA’S LARGEST AI EVENT lands in Gauteng

SA AI ASSOCIATION

launch a big success

MICHALSONS focus on lawful AI

GOOGLE HEALTH Using AI in Africa

RECORD VENDOR TURNOUT FOR 6TH EDITION OF AI EXPO AFRICA

GUEST EDITORS REGIONAL EDITORS

Natasha Ochiel (Kenya)

Co-Founder | CEO The AI Centre of Excellence natasha@aiceafrica.com

Darlington Akogo (Ghana)

CEO, minoHealth AI / KaraAgro AI & Member of United Nations ITU & WHO Focus Group on AI For Health

natasha-ochiel

I

n a bid to champion Artificial Intelligence in Africa, she co-founded the AI Centre of Excellence that aims to build sustainable value for AI in Africa by building capacity, building demand and building AI solutions through the Centre in Kenya.

INTERNATIONAL EDITOR

Deon Van Zyl (Norway) Senior System Developer Nordic Semiconductor

deonvanzyl

ii SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

darlingtonakogo

D

arlington Akogo is a global leader in Artificial Intelligence. He's the Founder and Director of Artificial Intelligence at GUDRA, and its subsidiaries; minoHealth; an AI Healthtech company based in Ghana.

Naomi Molefe

MSc, Manager: Strategic Sourcing and Research at Discovery & Co-Founder & Chapter Director Women In Big Data, South Africa

naomimolefe

N

aomi is the co-Founder and Chapter Director for women in Big Data SA; a registered NPO that is part of a global community of 17 000 women.

The learning community works with strategic partners to cultivate tangible opportunities for women, unlock latent potential through accessible training and act as a catalyst for the advancement of women in Big Data fields.

F

or 25 years, I have been an accomplished IT professional who is skilled in multiple languages with a strong background in development, security, digital forensics, automation, AI, management, and teaching.

Through my work, I have been exposed to various industries, influenced public opinion, and networked with innovative leaders. As a roving Guest Editor, I write about new technologies that are reshaping the world such as Artificial Intelligence, VR & AR, Cybersecurity, Web3 and more.

Read more editions 1st QUARTER 2022 | ISSUE 15

SYNAPSE

AI TECH INVESTMENT IN AFRICA

TALKING THE LANGUAGE OF AI IN AFRICA

Africa’s 4IR Trade & Innovation Magazine

reaches new heights INSTADEEP

$

£

Raises $100M

¢

2nd QUARTER 2022 | ISSUE 16

SYNAPSE VOXCROFT ANALYTICS

R

Raises $2 Million

Africa’s 4IR Trade & Innovation Magazine

LANAFRICA

creates centralised language hub

GOOGLE adds 10 African languages

AFRICAN TECH

AI LAWYER

Raised $4bn in 2021

helps Kenyans gain access to justice

GAUTENG SOUTH AFRICA,

BONANG.AI

the new Silicon Valley of Africa?

Fights Crime in the City

AI EXPO AFRICA 2022

AI EXPO AFRICA 2022

JOIN AFRICA’S LARGEST B2B AI EVENT

MOVES TO JOHANNEBURG

3rd QUARTER 2022 | ISSUE 17

SYNAPSE Africa’s 4IR Trade & Innovation Magazine

WELCOME TO THE AI TECH CAPITAL OF AFRICA BLUEPRISM LANAFRICA

4th QUARTER 2022 | ISSUE 18

SYNAPSE Africa’s 4IR Trade & Innovation Magazine

2022 SEES BREAKTHROUGH GROWTH OF AFRICAN AI COMMUNITY DSN Unveils AIpowered On-demand learning

Employee Experience creates centralised Boosted by Advanced language hub Automation

GOOGLE adds 10 NETHERLANDS African languages AI that EMBASSY

SOUTH AFRICA

To Launch Artificial Intelligence institute

Champions Inclusion AI LAWYER

ARM Extends Partnership Network in Africa

helps Kenyans SWITZERLAND

gain access toFruits Harvesting the justice of the AI Summer

Meta AI Develops

BONANG.AI tinyML is the next Fights in wave ofCrime Machine Learning the City

model to translate 55 African Languages

AI EXPO EXPO AI AFRICA 2022 2022 AFRICA

5TH ANNIVERSARY EDITION -

JOIN AFRICA’S LARGEST CELEBRATING THE RETURN B2B AI EVENTEVENTS TO IN-PERSON

AI AI EXPO EXPO AFRICA AFRICA 2022 2022 POST SHOW EDITION -

JOIN AFRICA’S LARGEST LARGEST GATHERING HAILED B2B AI EVENT A MASSIVE SUCCESS

WELCOME FROM THE EDITOR

A

Dr Nick Bradshaw Editor & CEO AI Media Group

nickbradshaw

N

ick is a Tech focused Executive / Entrepreneur helping clients, communities, practitioners & start-ups understand the value of Artificial Intelligence, Automation & Digital solutions in EMEA region. With 25 years experience in Europe, North America & Africa Nick has worked with a diverse set of Multi $bn global clients seeking to deploy and mature Enterprise grade software & cloud solutions. He is founder of the AI Media Group a new hybrid media, events, consulting & trade community offering clients insights into the growing 4IR opportunity in Africa. AI Media publish Synapse Magazine and run Africa’s largest Enterprise AI Trade Show – AI Expo Africa."

ABOUT SYNAPSE MAGAZINE

Synapse Magazine chronicles the 4th Industrial Revolution as it unfolds in Africa and plays a vital part in connecting the members of this rapidly growing trade community across the region. With a global readership, it puts Africa centre stage with a clear focus on the African 4IR innovation & investment narrative. We cover a range of technologies including; artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent automation (IA), robotic process automation (RPA), internet of things (IoT), big data, analytics & devices, as well as emerging standards, ethics and privacy concerns. Now entering its 6th year of publication, this unique quarterly trade publication is FREE to read on the ISSUU platform.

nd just like that, the 6th Edition of AI Expo Africa is upon us! From humble beginnings and a sketch on a bit of paper in 2017, the show has now grown into its new home in Johannesburg which will see the second running of the event at the Sandton Convention Centre. We are very happy to have the likes of the Gauteng Tourism Authority, SA Tourism and City of Johannesburg Tourism getting behind this year’s event as destination and host city partners. We at AI Media HQ also cannot wait to see the record vendor lineup we have assembled for our delegates in at the show - with a record number attending.

Our Synapse magazine is now at edition #21 and going from strength to strength and our new research for the next edition of The State of AI in Africa Report has shown the African AI ecosystem has grown 45% from last year, mainly led by SMMEs of less than 10 staff staff who are innovating on a range of new platforms. The launch of the SA AI Association has been a major focus for us since June, which saw us run a launch a series of launch and dialogue roadshows (July in Pretoria and September in Cape Town, with a final one planned for KZN just before Xmas). As we now start to think about 2024, we are betting on a pivotal year for AI Africa next year and a lot of new innovations are going to emerge. We hope you enjoy this Show Edition of Synapse Magazine and for sure will see you at AI Expo Africa 2023.

PUBLISHER AI Media Group Web www.aimediagroup.co.za EDITOR Nick Bradshaw GUEST EDITORS Natasha Ochiel (Kenya) Darlington Akogo (Ghana) Naomi Molefe (South Africa) Deon Van Zyl (Global)

EDITORIAL & ADVERTISING ENQUIRIES enquiries@aiexpoafrica.com ACCOUNTS PAYABLE & ADMIN Mia Muylaert mia.muylaert@aiexpoafrica.com LAYOUT, DESIGN & PRINT Karin Liebenberg iCandy Design Email: karinl@icandydesign.co.za

SHOW EDITION 2023 | SYNAPSE

iii iii

Join the largest B2B AI, RPA & Smart Tech Trade Event in Africa

& explore the growing 4IR opportunity in the region

2 Day Trade Show & Conference / 60+ Vendors 50+ Speakers & Panelists / Plenary Keynotes / Women in AI Zone Start-up Zone / AI Art Gallery / R & D Poster Presentation 4 AI Skills Workshops / 7 Networking Sessions / VIP Lounge / Meetup Bar

Tickets on sale NOW

Click here to register TODAY

SANDTON CONVENTION CENTRE JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA

Business

Connecting

e

Educa tion ort pp Su

Kn ow led g

ation v o Inn

2-3 NOV2023

www.aiexpoafrica.com

Contents SYNAPSE | ISSUE 21 | SHOW EDITION 2023 2

p16 A collective and inclusive voice for responsible and open AI: The Africa-Asia AI Policymaker Network

p24 Make money in realtime: Using behavioral social science and machine learning

p28 Google adds first African language to Bard

Johannesburg welcomes largest gathering of Artificial Intelligence experts 4 Launch of The SA AI Association 7 Convert news media into interactive video 8 How AI Marketing Tools Propel Marketing to the Next Level 10 Educating for Agriculture 4.0: AI's Transformational Role in African Farming 12 From Poverty Alleviation to National Security: Computational Modelling Enabling Smart Solutions that Work 15 Empowering African Enterprises: The Roadmap to AI Integration 16 A collective and inclusive voice for responsible and open AI: The Africa-Asia AI Policymaker Network 18 Mastering the AI Wave: Key Takeaways from Training and Advising South Africa's Top Corporates 20 Unlocking the Future: Cognitive AI is Bridging the Gap Between Virtual and Physical Realms 22 AICA: Pioneering Data Excellence Through AI and ML 24 Make money in real-time: Using behavioral social science and machine learning 26 Building Blocks of a Cloud Native AI Data Center 28 Google adds first African language to Bard 30 5 ways Google Health is using AI in Africa 32 A sound of hope for South Africa in the fight against trafficking 38 Harnessing the Power of Data 40 AI Expo Africa Exhibitors and Partners 44 AI Solution Monitors your Patients for you

47 Leveraging AI (law)fully 51 Unlock the Power of Data: Your Path to AI Excellence 53 Harnessing the Innovation and Power of IoT and AI 56 You can’t buy AI: Machine learning is a process and not a product 59 Convergence Partners Investments rebrands to Solcon Capital 61 BRICS announces formation of AI study group

p53 Harnessing the Innovation and Power of IoT and AI

p56 You can’t buy AI: Machine learning is a process and not a product

SHOW EDITION 2023 | SYNAPSE

1

AI EXPO AFRICA LANDS IN JOZI

JOHANNESBURG WELCOMES LARGEST GATHERING OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE EXPERTS Africa’s largest Artificial Intelligence & Intelligent Automation event, AI Expo Africa, will be running its highly acclaimed conference & tradeshow at the Sandton Convention Centre, Johannesburg, South Africa 2-3 November.

Now entering its 6th year, the annual AI Expo Africa unites regional and international suppliers of the latest cutting edge 4IR technologies, from the biggest global brands to the smallest and newest local SMMEs. The core focus of the show are real world applications you can deploy today with an audience comprised of Enterprise and Government buyers, deployment & service providers, start-ups, educators, NGOs and ecosystem builders.

Nonnie Kubeka, Executive Director of the Gauteng Convention & Event Bureau stated, “The Gauteng Region has a significant and growing tech ecosystem focused on 4IR technologies and we are really happy to see our regional SMMEs being represented in numbers at AI Expo Africa. The event is aimed at helping connect buyers and suppliers around one of the fastest growing sectors of the economy. AI is impacting all industries and certain aspects of society so its key we as a region, and a nation, have a focus on this sector as it’s a key pillar of our ICT activities and we want to showcase the local ecosystem to regional and international audience.”

With a community of 50k+ practitioners, the show format is built upon the phenomenal success of the previous five annual events that have cemented AI Expo Africa as the largest business gathering of its kind, attended by Enterprise buyers, Governments, 4IR practitioners, decision makers, international trade missions, vendors, SMMEs and global brands.

2 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

Dr Nick Bradshaw, CEO & Founder of AI Expo Africa stated, “This is our 6th Anniversary Edition and biggest show to-date, with over 80+ companies in the expo hall, many of which are local and regional SMMEs. The buzz since the launch of ChatGPT and generative AI in 2022 means we have a whole new category of companies and speakers discussing the latest tools and techniques that anyone can get to grips with. The show will be attended by 1300+ delegates and we have 50+ speakers plus a range of show features like; the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) Women in AI Pavilion, the Start-up Zone, a University R&D Poster Zone, a Gen AI / VR / Robot showcase, seven networking sessions, four Skills Workshops.

Last year several VCs identified local tech companies they want to invest in and with new startups exhibiting at the show there is sure to be similar interest again this year.”

In this year's event, the GIZ Women in AI Pavilion will showcase nine innovative smart technology start-ups led by women. The Digital Skills for Jobs and Income project implemented

by GIZ on behalf of the German government (BMZ) is committed to empowering and improving young women and girls' digital skills and facilitating integration into South Africa's burgeoning digital economy. "Facilitating networking opportunities and showcasing inspirational female role models within the digital economy is of paramount importance to enhance women's participation in South Africa's digital transformation," emphasizes Godfrey Nkosi, the dedicated technical advisor at GIZ. All delegates that join the event can secure a FREE copy of the “State of AI in Africa Report” and are encouraged to join the newly created SA AI Association that is promoting the use of Responsible AI and will be present at the show.

Learn more www.aiexpoafrica.com

SHOW EDITION 2023 | SYNAPSE

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INDUSTRY NEWS

LAUNCH OF THE SA AI ASSOCIATION / By Nick Bradshaw /

The South African Artificial Intelligence Association (SAAIA) is an industry body focused on promoting the advancement of responsible AI in South Africa by uniting practitioners across Commercial, Government, Academic, Startup and NGO sectors.

S

AAIA seeks to encourage stakeholders in the adoption of responsible AI for the commercial and societal benefit of the citizens of South Africa with a primary focus on economic growth, trade, investment, equality and inclusivity.

From hype to a global reality the SAAIA vision has been shaped by analysing the global and local landscape, identifying needs and filling the blanks with research.

This has revealed both the challenges and opportunities AI and related smart technologies can bring to South Africa for both citizens and the wider economy. Our

4 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

vision is evidenced based with responsible, human centric AI as its foundation.

The SAAIA mission is to engage both individuals and organisations, novices and experts, those who are connected and not connected so no one is left behind. It is of vital importance that the opportunities Artificial Intelligence presents are possible and available for everyone to embrace.

Therefore our mission is underpinned by ten key objectives.

Serve as the voice of the industry Provide analysis & research to inform strategy & decision making Help National, Provincial & City Governments with policy making Unite buyers and suppliers to grow the economy Connect SMMEs to funding to create new companies & jobs Attract FDI to South Africa as the “4IR gateway” to Africa Help African smart tech companies find markets abroad Showcase the best of South African AI Innovation & Research Promote debate on inclusion, ethics, regulation & standards Share best practice & education resources for all Dr Nick Bradshaw, the founder of SAAIA stated, “Our research has shown that

AI and related automation technologies are currently impacting 120+ traditional industries globally AND creating new opportunities and challenges in timescale never seen before. The speed of this disruption is faster than any other industrial revolution that has gone before it. SAAIA seeks to encourage stakeholders in the adoption of responsible AI for the commercial and societal benefit of the citizens of South Africa with a primary focus on economic growth, trade, investment, fairness, equality and inclusivity. Our founding partners and Advisory Board members are drawn from across multiple domains and passionate about the adoption of responsible AI. Many of our Advisory Board members are community builders in their own right, tackling key issues like education, inclusion, training, regulation, ethics, policy and investment.”

SAAIA will be holding a launch event and roadshow series kicking off at the Tshwane University of Technology AI Institute Hub on the 19th July. Individual membership is free and members of SAAIA gain access to resources, insights and news throughout the year. Members also receive discounts to join the association’s annual event, AI Expo Africa, which this year is being held in Johannesburg 2-3 November at the Sandton Convention Centre. Learn more and sign up today at https://saaiassociation.co.za/

INDUSTRY NEWS

SNAPSHOTS FROM ROADSHOW LAUNCHES

SHOW EDITION 2023 | SYNAPSE

5

ASSOCIATION OFFER

Members get

50% off

JOIN the SA AI Association TODAY Promoting responsible AI in South Africa www.saaiassociation.co.za

tickets to AI Expo Africa &

FREE copy of the State of AI in Africa Report

VENDOR NEWS

CONVERT NEWS MEDIA INTO INTERACTIVE VIDEO

T

he internet has made content freely available. Ad spending is favouring social media. Monthly subscriptions seems to benefit few news media. More people spend more time on the Internet. Ad spending on news media is declining, and fake news is on the rise.

Solution BONAFELA AI (“BONAFELA”) has identified innovative solutions to make news media profitable when migrating to the internet.

Namely; Stream Text to Video Use our services to convert news articles into professional, emotional and entertaining videos in real time. Use our services to stream video on demand and live stream videos 24/7 just like television broadcasting its content.

Stream Interactive Video Use our services to transform video into Interactive AI video. This allows viewer to have a conversation with any Generative AI person shown on video at anytime during streaming just like two or more people having video call conversation over the Internet. Conversation can be in any combination of text, images, voice and video-to-video. During conversion provide sources of information to enhance viewer confidence that they are receiving reliable, trusted, and truthful content.

Social Media App We encourage our customers to join our new social media app as single source of truthful news that provides reliable, trusted, and truthful content. We keep our customer visitors engaged with features that include relevant instant notification whenever our customers publish new content on their website.

Customer Benefits Increase website visits Video is the main stream of Internet content. BONAFELA streams professional, emotional and entertaining videos to customer website. Video is created in real time using customer content. As a result, revenue and visitor engagement will dramatically improve.

No upfront payments There are no upfront payments to use our services. Our business proposition is based on ads revenue sharing model

where profits are shared between BONAFELA and the customer.

Non-intrusive ads BONAFELA creates videos in real time using generative AI. Ads can be displayed and played in non-intrusive manner without annoying the viewer. It is a virtual world where anything can be done.

Interactive chat We make our customers offer what no one offers. Content is the biggest commodity to our customers. At anytime, 24/7, viewer can have a chat with newsreader or any generative AI person just like two or more people having a video call over the Internet. Intelligence response from generative AI person is based on customer’s content, previously published content by our customer, content from strategic allies of our customer and public knowledge.

24/7 second life When creating a video, we don’t just use any voice or any face of a talking person.

We encourage our customers to use their journalists, their TV newsreaders or any person who wants to have a 24/7 second life in a virtual world.

Social Media App Our social media app consist of our customers to form a single source of reliable, trusted, and truthful news. With features that include instant notification of new news to loyal visitors of our customers.

Invest In Us Invest in us and get a share of each and every news media that we do business with.

Investor Benefits Invest in a scalable solution BONAFELA has innovative solutions to make news media profitable. In our opinion, our solution defines a new market with plenty of room to grow worldwide.

Invest in a company that keeps innovating We make attractive offers to our customers. No upfront payments from them or their visitors. And we still deliver high ROI (Return-On-Investment).

Interactive AI video chat opens many exciting applications that were never possible and some are completely new to the world. We keep innovating and publish patents.

Invest in a sustainable worldwide solution Our solutions are globally marketable.

Main form of monetization of solutions offered to news media is ads played on video. Ads are placed in non-intrusive manner. Anything can be displayed on a video, from changing clothing of newsreader to displays on surroundings, and making newsreader to promote any paid product.

Feeling Generous In our AI solutions, software programming is performed with high performance computer equipped with NVIDIA GPUs. Your kindness in buying us AI workstation or AI server will improve our SOTA (State Of The Art) solutions and accelerate business growth.

About Us BONAFELA is a South African company based in Pretoria, and it is Level 1 contributor to Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE). We develop Interactive AI video solutions that open many exciting applications that were never possible and some are completely new to the world.

Contact Us My name is Jerry Matjila, and I’m the owner of BONAFELA AI (PTY) LTD. Contact me at jerry.matjila@bonafela.co.za or +27 83 620 3912 Demos available upon request.

Visit us at http://www.bonafela.co.za

SHOW EDITION 2023 | SYNAPSE

7

VENDOR NEWS

HOW AI MARKETING TOOLS PROPEL MARKETING TO THE NEXT LEVEL / by Michelle Geere, CEO of Adbot /

I

n today's competitive business landscape, marketers need to use every tool at their disposal to succeed. The marketing landscape is constantly changing, new technologies and platforms emerge all the time, and consumer behaviors are constantly evolving. Trying to stay ahead can become overwhelming, especially with salary budgets shrinking.

One way to stay ahead and not drown is to encourage your team to embrace artificial intelligence (AI) marketing tools. AI marketing tools can help you and your team save time and money, automate tasks, and improve their marketing ROI while staying ahead of trends. And don't stress. This doesn't mean that you are replacing your team with machines. AI tools do one of 4 things really well at scale.

Automate repetitive tasks: AI marketing tools can automate a variety of repetitive tasks, such as social media scheduling, email marketing, and customer support.

This can free up your time so you can focus on more strategic initiatives.

Personalize the customer experience: AI can be used to personalize the customer experience at scale. For example, AIpowered chatbots can answer customer questions and provide support in real time. AI can also be used to create personalized email campaigns and product recommendations.

Gain insights into customer behavior: AI can be used to analyze customer data and gain insights into their behavior. This information can be used to improve your marketing campaigns and target your audience more effectively.

Improve your marketing ROI: AI can help you improve your marketing ROI by optimizing your campaigns and targeting the right audience. For example, AI can help you identify the best keywords to use for your SEO campaigns and the most effective ad placements.

Marketing done well is simply put; sharing the right message with the right person at the right time. It gives the customer the control they've been asking for and increases your effectiveness. But to achieve this requires a lot of tasks, reading, summarizing, sourcing content, and sharing.

It is impossible for humans to do these tasks

8 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

at scale. AND that is why AI is so beneficial.

60% of smaller businesses already use AI to level the playing field.

Here are a few examples of AI marketing tools that your team can use: Chatbots: Chatbots can be used to answer customer questions, provide support, and generate leads. Some popular chatbot platforms include https://verloop.io/, https://humanbot.io/, https://wonderchat.io/, https://livechatai. com/ Automated Ads: Platforms that automate your campaign management of your ads can get you better results and reduce your cost, time, and better your results.

Some popular automation ad platforms include https://myadbot.com/ Email marketing tools: Email marketing tools can be used to automate email campaigns, track results, and personalize messages. Some popular email marketing tools include https://mailchimp.com/, https://phrasee.co/, and https://www. hubspot.com/ Social media management tools: Social media management tools can be used to schedule posts, track engagement, and analyze results. Some popular social media management tools include https:// www.hootsuite.com/ SEO tools: SEO tools can help you identify the right keywords to use for your website and track your progress in search engine rankings. Some popular SEO tools include https://www.frase.io/pricing/ Design: we can now have machines designing for us. Here are some tools that are popular in this field: https://designs. ai/, https://www.adcreative.ai/, https:// openai.com/dall-e-2 Video creation: With video being the most engaging format online, you need to deliver multiple videos at a lower cost.

These are some video creation platforms that are popular https://pictory.ai/, https://designs.ai/ Presentations: you can even have AI create and write your presentations with https://www.storydoc.com/ I encourage you to explore the many AI marketing tools that are available. AI marketing tools can help you save time and money, automate tasks, and improve your marketing ROI. I know that adopting some of these tools can be overwhelming, but get a

younger employee to drive the process. Here are also some tips on choosing and using the AI marketing tools for you: 1. Start small: Don't feel like you need to implement all the AI marketing tools at once. Start with one or two tools that you think will be most beneficial to your business.

2. Experiment: Don't be afraid to experiment with different AI marketing tools and strategies. They all are subscription-based, and you can start and stop whenever you want.

3. Track your results: It's important to track your results so you can see what's working and what's not.

The power of AI marketing tools is at your fingertips. These remarkable tools enable teams of all sizes to overcome resource constraints and achieve remarkable growth.

By streamlining operations, delivering personalized experiences at scale, gathering insights, and increasing your ROI, AI empowers you to make the most of your valuable resources. So, embrace the AI revolution, optimize your marketing efforts, and watch your team soar to unprecedented heights. Together, we can conquer the challenges and seize the opportunities that lie ahead.

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

EDUCATING FOR AGRICULTURE 4.0:

AI's Transformational Role in African Farming In Africa, the agricultural sector remains fraught with persistent challenges—erratic weather patterns, nutrient-deprived soils, and inefficient water utilization to name a few. These impediments are not merely localized issues; they are systemic barriers that hold back economic progress and food security for the continent. Given this backdrop, could a seamless integration of state-of-the-art artificial intelligence technologies offer a viable solution?

Augmented Startups posits a resounding yes with its meticulously designed course, "AI in Agriculture."

E

ngineered to serve a diverse audience, including academic institutions, corporates, startups, and individual enthusiasts, this course amalgamates an array of advanced technologies. The curriculum seamlessly fuses Large Language Models (LLMs), LangChain, computer vision, machine learning, and other data-centric methodologies to address longstanding agricultural challenges.

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Instant Soil and Crop Analysis Take, for example, nutrient deficiency detection. Traditionally, assessing soil quality would entail complicated lab tests with prolonged result periods. Through the employment of computer vision and Large Language Models, farmers can now capture images of the soil, receive immediate, sophisticated analysis, and subsequent recommendations for appropriate fertilizers.

The application of AI here does not merely simplify the process; it revolutionizes it.

AI-Enabled Weather Forecasts The role of LLMs and LangChain becomes increasingly evident when one examines the predictive capabilities for weather conditions. The complexities of local weather phenomena can be unraveled through machine learning algorithms, but it is the integration of LLMs with LangChain that provides a real-time conversational interface for farmers. These technologies allow farmers to "chat" with data, transforming cryptic weather forecasts into intelligible, actionable insights. Whether it's an impending pest infestation or the optimal time for irrigation, this interactive modality empowers farmers to make timely, wellinformed decisions.

Tech-Driven Water Management Efficient water management is another sector where this multidisciplinary approach

pays dividends. The course introduces groundbreaking irrigation optimization applications that leverage machine learning, and data-driven LLMs. The result?

A sustainable model of agriculture that maximizes output while drastically reducing water wastage – a crucial step in regions grappling with water scarcity.

Revitalizing Livestock Management Through AI Innovations In the realm of livestock management, Augmented Startups is revolutionizing while simultaneously democratizing traditional practices by leveraging state-of-the-art technologies. For instance, the course on AI in Agriculture showcases how cattle face and behavior analytics can transform herd management. By identifying individual cattle and monitoring their activities and moods, farmers gain insights that were once only possible through constant human observation. This approach is vital for timely interventions and improved livestock wellbeing. The technology combines computer vision and Large Language Models (LLMs) to transform raw data into analytical, actionable dashboards.

The innovations extend beyond cattle.

Automated pig counting and fish farm monitoring solutions have been introduced, harnessing object detection models and LLM-powered chatbots. These ...continues on page 13

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

State of AI in Africa 202 2 REP O RT

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Analysis of the 4IR in Africa – A Foundation for Growth Report Commissioned by the AI Media Group SHOW EDITION 2023 | SYNAPSE

11

RESEARCH NEWS

FROM POVERTY ALLEVIATION TO NATIONAL SECURITY:

Computational modelling enabling smart solutions that work / By Regina Maphanga / “By extending its applications, we can harness the power of computational modelling to tackle poverty, unemployment and national security, and promote environmental, social and governance (ESG) practices.”

– Regina Maphanga

C

omputer modelling refers to the process of creating virtual representations or simulations of real-world systems, allowing researchers and policymakers to study and analyse complex phenomena in a controlled environment or processes using computer software and algorithms. It entails the use of mathematical equations, data inputs, and computational algorithms to mimic and simulate the behaviour, interactions and outcomes of the system being modelled.

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Computer modelling offers several benefits and applications. It allows researchers, scientists, engineers, and decision-makers to study complex systems, explore whatif scenarios, optimise designs, predict outcomes, and make informed decisions without the need for costly or time-consuming physical experimentation. It bridges the gap between theoretical understanding and realworld complexity, enabling us to gain insights into systems that may be inaccessible, expensive, or dangerous to study physically.

By extending its applications, we can harness the power of computational modelling to tackle poverty, unemployment, and national security, and promote ESG practices. As a thought leader in computational modelling, I firmly believe that leveraging its capabilities in these domains can reshape our society and create a more equitable and secure future.

Poverty Alleviation and Unemployment: Poverty alleviation and unemployment are pressing socioeconomic challenges that require comprehensive approaches to address them effectively. Computational modelling offers a powerful tool for understanding the intricate dynamics of these issues and developing targeted strategies for intervention.

By applying computational models, researchers can simulate various scenarios to assess the impact of different policies and interventions on poverty reduction and employment creation. These models consider factors such as economic indicators, social conditions, educational attainment levels, access to resources and government initiatives, to cite a few.

Furthermore, computational modelling enables policymakers to identify potential bottlenecks or unintended consequences that may arise from certain interventions.

By analysing various parameters within the model’s framework, decision-makers can optimise resource allocation by prioritising sectors with a high potential for job creation, while also targeting vulnerable populations that are most in need of support.

This understanding enables us to design targeted interventions, such as skill development programmes, job creation initiatives and social safety nets, with the aim of fostering inclusive economic growth and enhancing livelihoods.

National Security: Ensuring the safety and security of nations in an increasingly digital and interconnected world demands advanced tools for risk assessment, intelligence analysis and strategic planning.

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP Computational modelling plays a pivotal role in analysing complex geopolitical landscapes, simulating potential scenarios, and assessing the impacts of various policies. By integrating diverse datasets and employing sophisticated algorithms, we can enhance our ability to detect emerging threats, formulate effective defence strategies and safeguard national interests.

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ESG Practices: The integration of ESG principles is vital for organisations that are committed to long-term sustainability and responsible business practices. Computational modelling empowers decision-makers to evaluate the impact of their actions on environmental conservation, social wellbeing, and corporate governance. By incorporating diverse variables and quantifying the potential outcomes, organisations can identify sustainable investment opportunities, optimise resource allocation, and enhance transparency and accountability.

Manufacturing: Next-generation manufacturing industries can push the boundaries of innovation by adopting modelling tools.

Computational modelling supports innovation in product and process design, reduces the need for physical testing and prototypes, defines complex process parameters, and leads to quality products and robust manufacturing processes.

Smart Infrastructure and Sustainable Urban Planning: The efficient utilisation of resources, resilience to climate change, and the development of smart cities are critical components of a sustainable future. Computational modelling enables us to design and optimise infrastructure systems, integrating renewable energy sources, transportation networks and waste management systems.

By simulating the interactions between these components, we can identify strategies that minimise environmental impact, enhance energy efficiency, and improve the quality of life for urban populations.

Crisis Response and Disaster: Management in the face of natural disasters, disease outbreaks or humanitarian crises, computational modelling offers crucial support for emergency response and resource allocation. By simulating different scenarios, emergency planners can identify optimal strategies, assess the potential impacts and allocate resources effectively. Furthermore, modelling the spread of infectious diseases aids in understanding transmission dynamics, evaluating the effectiveness of interventions and formulating proactive healthcare strategies.

As computational modelling revolutionises our understanding of complex systems, it becomes a powerful tool for driving social impact.

By leveraging its capabilities in poverty alleviation, unemployment mitigation, national security and ESG practices, we can foster a more inclusive, secure and sustainable future. As a thought leader in computational modelling, I am committed to pushing the boundaries of its application in various domains, working towards a world in which technology is harnessed for the betterment of society. Let us embrace computational modelling as a catalyst for transformative change, shaping a future that leaves no one behind and prioritises the wellbeing of both people and the planet.

Now is the time to seize the tremendous opportunities offered by computational modelling. By partnering with us, a thought leader in computational modelling and sustainable business development, you can unlock new frontiers and drive innovation at a reduced cost and time. Our expertise will empower your organisation to harness the full potential of computational modelling, optimise operations, embrace sustainable practices and position your brand as a leader in the market.

advancements offer real-time counting and care tips, replacing manual labor and guesswork with precision and actionable advice. Additionally, the integration of blockchain technology ensures traceability and transparency from farm to consumer.

LLMs with LangChain Unify Agri-Tech It's important to emphasize the unifying role played by LangChain and Large Language Models across these applications. They act as the neural glue that translates raw data into actionable intelligence. This facilitates automated operations and enables a novel, interactive experience where farmers can essentially "converse" with their data, leading to more dynamic and intelligent decision-making processes on the farm.

Strategic Academic Partnerships Augmented Startups is also fortifying this technological bridge through strategic partnerships. A collaboration with Tshwane University of Technology aims to tighten the loop between academic theory and practical execution. Additionally, a partnership with Zindi.AI serves to foster a community of data scientists who can propel these technologies forward.

In summary, Augmented Startups isn't just disseminating knowledge; it is shaping the future of agriculture in Africa by making complex technologies accessible and functional for those who stand to benefit the most. Through this AI in Agriculture course, Augmented Startups aims to catalyze a paradigm shift, changing not just how agriculture is practiced, but how it is conceptualized, ensuring food security and sustainability for the continent.

Explore the potential of Artificial Intelligence in agriculture with Augmented Startups. We invite you to access a complimentary preview of our 'AI in Agriculture' course. Learn more here: https://augmentedstartups.info/ ai-in-agriculture.

Dr Regina Maphanga is the Research Group Leader for the Design and Optimisation research group at the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) in Pretoria. She has a PhD in physics from the University of Limpopo.

Email: RMaphangai@csir.co.za

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VENDOR NEWS

EMPOWERING AFRICAN ENTERPRISES:

The Roadmap to AI Integration / By Karin Louw /

T

he Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is sweeping across the globe, bringing a wave of transformative possibilities. In this era of limitless potential, Africa stands on the brink of unparalleled opportunities. As the world embraces the power of data science and AI, African enterprises, educational institutions, and government bodies can aspire to significant achievements.

Harnessing this potential requires a thoughtful, ethical approach. Merging data science with AI can pave the way for innovation, economic growth, and sustainable development in Africa.

Exploring the AI landscape in Africa: Unleashing innovation From the tech hubs of Nairobi to innovation centres in Cape Town and research facilities in Lagos, Africa is embracing the benefits of AI. But successful AI integration isn't just about technology: it hinges on adopting a data-centric mindset. As organisations across the continent adopt AI, there's an unmistakable recognition of data as the gold mine for growth. The emphasis? For data science, it's about harnessing insights for informed decisions. In AI, a high-quality, small dataset trumps vast, low-quality ones.

With this focus, Africa is positioning itself as a global AI contender.

Building a data-driven culture A modern organisation values a culture centred around data. Every decision should start with, "What does the data suggest?"

However, having the right quality and type of data isn't guaranteed. It's vital to assess available data, understand its limitations, and work towards filling gaps. This adoption is a journey, involving an assessment of AI readiness, infrastructure, talent, and leadership commitment.

It is equally important to ensure every employee across the business understands the value of data. This is where data literacy comes into play. Accessing vast

datasets is just the start; then comes understanding, interpreting, and applying this data thoughtfully. Comprehensive training programs, hands-on workshops, and regular upskilling sessions are essential for this transformation, bridging the knowledge gap and equipping teams to leverage data for innovation, operational efficiency, and holistic strategic planning.

The lifecycle of AI projects At ExploreAI, we believe the success of AI projects isn't a linear path, but rather cyclical.

They thrive on continuous iteration and refinement instead of rigidly moving from one step to the next.

Ideation: Defining objectives and setting goals Data collection: Gathering the necessary data to fuel the project Model development: This is where ideas transform into actionable algorithms Deployment: Turning solutions into realworld applications Feedback loops: A commitment to refinement – constantly listening, learning, and iterating.

Each phase, while presenting its set of challenges, also unravels opportunities for innovation and value addition. Agility and adaptability become the guiding principles, ensuring projects resonate with organisational vision even as the AI landscape shifts.

Roles, responsibilities, and resources AI is inherently collaborative. It's a blend of diverse roles and responsibilities: Leaders: Visionaries who align with organisational goals. Their commitment fuels success.

Technical teams: These are the experts, transforming the vision into tangible AI solutions.

Subject matter experts: The bridge

between AI technology and practical, industry-specific applications. ●Project managers: The orchestrators, ensuring seamless collaboration and timely deliveries.

Human talent is indispensable but also just one piece of the puzzle. Equipping these bright minds with cutting-edge tools, technology, and resources is essential. A balanced focus on people and technology ensures that businesses remain agile, innovative, and competitive in the everevolving AI landscape.

Staying ahead: The continuous journey of AI AI is an ever-evolving and dynamic domain. While new algorithms, models, and applications emerge constantly, the true star remains the data. For AI to deliver its transformative potential, the emphasis should be on curating, maintaining, and scaling high-quality datasets. It's the fuel that powers the AI engine. African entities need to prioritise this to harness the full potential of AI. Engaging with the global AI community is about more than just staying at the forefront of algorithmic advancements. It's about understanding how to apply these tools effectively. Actively participating in international conferences, engaging in workshops, and forging collaborations is less about chasing the state-of-the-art and more about identifying how AI can address realworld challenges and deliver tangible value.

In the world of AI, the magic isn't just in the algorithms but in matching technical capabilities to the right use cases.

Companies should be clear about their goals; value springs from the application of AI, not just the research behind it.

Embracing the AI promise Africa's journey in the realm of AI and data science goes beyond technology. It's a narrative of hope, ambition, and a brighter future grounded in data-driven insight.

There's a shared responsibility for diverse African stakeholders, including startups and corporations, to navigate the AI landscape with foresight, inclusivity, and sustainability.

AI offers immense possibilities. Yet, unlocking its potential demands more than algorithms; it requires vision, unwavering commitment, and collaboration. Africa is ready to not only join but lead in the AI revolution. The moment is here, and it's essential to approach AI with responsibility and determination.

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15

POLICY NEWS

A COLLECTIVE AND INCLUSIVE VOICE FOR RESPONSIBLE AND OPEN AI: The Africa-Asia AI Policymaker Network

I

nternational cooperation and joint understanding are crucial ingredients to tackle AI bias and build thriving and responsible AI ecosystems. From 12 to 15 June, policymakers from Ghana, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, Telangana State in India and Uganda convened in Rwanda to show how this can be achieved.

These policymakers are part of the unique Africa-Asia AI Policymaker Network: It is a platform for the collective, cross-country and continental exchange of Africa-Asia government officials on policy frameworks and strategies to develop responsible and locally relevant AI applications – a network that is much needed in a global AI discourse where diverse regional perspectives are still not fully represented.

From 13 to 14 June, the policymakers attended the inaugural AfricAI Conference, together with over 250 AI researchers, practitioners, and civil society representatives from 27 countries. During the conference, participants discussed, from a multi-sectoral perspective, a diverse range of topics: How can we develop contextual ethical AI policies? How can we advance responsible and open AI in Agriculture in Africa? Or how can we leverage inclusive and open language data for sustainable development? Their participation was geared at gaining insights from and connecting with the practical and operational side of AI. Norrsken House Kigali, the hub for entrepreneurship in Rwanda, also hosted the policymakers during this time, who conducted a site visit to get first-hand experience of the start-up ecosystem on-site.

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15 June was set aside exclusively for the policymakers to discuss regional and specific AI matters and build relations.

The network shared its diverse AI policy experiences from drafting National AI and Data Strategies or Procurement Guidelines, implementing an AI Chatbot for Data Protection or establishing a national AI Institute.

Through sharing valuable insights and drawing from real-world examples, the government officials collectively discussed AI strategies and ethical AI regulatory frameworks, considering the diverse social, and economic regional contexts of each country represented. They shared their challenges and barriers with each process and identified potentials for collaboration – a shared value creation initiative for the policymakers and FAIR Forward.

In the upcoming months, the network will build on the insights gained from this year’s in person event, which will inform its upcoming activities and sustain the network as peer-learning exchange forum.

The Africa-Asia AI Policymaker Network launched in March 2022, following a fourmonth Peer Learning and Capacity Building Programme on Artificial Intelligence led by the Human Sciences Research Council to aid their AI journey of creating responsible and open AI ecosystems, through effective policymaking and governance structures.

The event and network is supported by “FAIR Forward – Artificial Intelligence for All”, a project implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Wonderful is unleashing the power of your data.

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Built-in AI acceleration is how wonderful gets done.

Learn More at Intel.com/Xeon For more complete information about performance and benchmark results, visit www.intel.com/benchmarks.

Intel, the Intel logo, and Xeon are trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries. © Intel Corporation 2020

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

MASTERING THE AI WAVE:

Key Takeaways from Training and Advising South Africa's Top Corporates / By Dean Furman /

So, you want to transform your company using AI? Great. I want to help you do just that.

Over the years, my team and I have been fortunate enough to run hundreds of AI-focused training and strategy sessions. We have advised and crafted dozens of AI strategies and have spoken at endless conferences. Our AI offerings have been licensed by partners in Israel, the US, the UK, and Australia, who have likewise added incredible value to their clients.

Having been deeply immersed in the world, I'd like to share some vital insights for those considering AI training or strategy partners.

Understanding AI's Potential is Crucial: Companies often struggle to innovate with AI primarily due to time constraints. Many leaders and pivotal employees lack the bandwidth to explore the ever-evolving realm of AI, being preoccupied with daily operational challenges. This lack of awareness of what is possible does not allow their leaders to strategically guide their company into the new age. Our team

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recognized this early on, ensuring our sessions succinctly impart essential AI knowledge. Through our engagements, we have seen participants gain critical insights, with some radically altering their AI strategy by the end of a session. A word of caution: the number of AI training providers and advisors is growing daily. Everyone and their granny are jumping on the AI bandwagon.

Their past ventures, whether selling hand sanitizers or solar panels, may not necessarily qualify them to enlighten others about AI.

Rethinking ChatGPT and AI Productivity Tools: Repeat after me: "Work is not school."

In academia, knowledge assessment is paramount. In the professional world, however, value addition and output take precedence. It's crucial to shed any guilt over deploying AI tools to augment one's tasks.

Leveraging these potent tools, especially given their affordability and accessibility, is a must. The risk of not using these tools drastically outweighs the risks of using them. Of course, you need to learn how to use them responsibly, but you have no option but to jump into this new age of AI-enhanced productivity with two feet. I believe it is irresponsible not to leverage the generative AI technologies that can save you many hours of work each week, while simultaneously improving the quality of work being done. Unfortunately, most people are only scratching the surface with their usage of ChatGPT, etc. As a business leader, you need to train your people, and make them feel comfortable to use these enabling, augmenting AI productivity boosters.

Make sure that you have an AI strategy that aligns with your business strategy.

Ensuring that your AI strategy is in perfect alignment with your business strategy is no longer optional; it's a critical pillar

of modern corporate success. In a world increasingly driven by digital innovation, artificial intelligence stands out as a transformative force, and businesses across the spectrum need to integrate it not as an isolated tool, but as a core component of their overall strategic plan. This integration means understanding your company's long-term goals, the needs of your customer base, and the operational intricacies that define your day-to-day activities, then leveraging AI to enhance, streamline, and potentially revolutionize those areas. An aligned AI strategy doesn't just amplify your current operations, it also paves the way for uncovering new opportunities, driving innovation, and maintaining a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving marketplace.

The Immense ROI: Quality AI training and having the right AI strategy promises colossal returns, but there's a catch: Action. Willingness to adapt, change, and act on newfound insights is pivotal. I can hand you the keys to the kingdom, but embarking on the journey?

That's up to you.

For more insights, feel free to reach out to me at dean@1064degrees.com.

About the author: Dean Furman is a well-known AI thought leader and is the CEO of 1064 Degrees, an AI training and advisory business.

He is an author, actuary and the co-creator of the popular AI experience called Dawn of Disruption.

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INTERNATIONAL EDITOR

that were repeated. A game-changer that gives virtual environments unpredictability and authenticity is AI-driven NPCs. These characters replicate human decision-making and behaviour.

Predictable reactions are a thing of the past. AI-powered NPCs have adapted to changing circumstances and add individuality to every interaction. These digital personas can evaluate their surroundings, respond quickly, and even have in-depth discussions on a variety of subjects. While realistic responses evoke feelings in the player. This evolution is being accelerated by the collaboration between game developers and AI brain services. When it comes to connecting their video, game characters to AI brain services, developers now have a wide range of options to select from. Some which go further than just a large language model (LLM). We might soon witness the fusion of NPCs capabilities even in the realm of customer support bots.

UNLOCKING THE FUTURE:

Cognitive AI is Bridging the Gap Between Virtual and Physical Realms

Deon van Zyl (Norway)

/ By Deon Van Zyl /

At the nexus of a revolution, we find ourselves reshaping the world as we know it. The era where technology advances at a continuous rate. Cognitive AI has entered the complex dance between the virtual and physical world. AI powered NPCs can display many human characteristics. While providing robots with new capabilities. These days, it's about creating machines that can sense, comprehend, and engage with our reality.

Finally, AI is incorporated with the human brain. Options multiply and the future appears right before our eyes.

The Intelligent NPCs with Cognitive AI Intelligent Non-Playable Characters (NPCs) with state-of-the-art Artificial Intelligence (AI) brains are leading this revolution in the gaming industry. Thus, causing

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a tremendous metamorphosis. These game-changers offer immersive, dynamic, and difficult experiences in virtual worlds.

Altering the laws of player interaction. NPCs used to only be able to perform programmed acts, which frequently resulted in encounters

BCom (Hons), Senior System Developer Linkedin: deonvanzyl Deon is a sophisticated technical IT professional with a solid history of effectively bridging the gap between Programming, Security, Digital Forensics, Artificial Intelligence, and Teaching.

His track record of over 24 years, has a footprint which spans major corporations, academic institutions, and government.

...continues on page 23

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VENDOR NEWS

AICA: PIONEERING DATA EXCELLENCE THROUGH AI AND ML Unlocking the Power of Data Management for the Modern Era In the dynamic landscape of the digital age, effective management of product and service data has emerged as a strategic imperative for businesses striving for operational efficiency and competitive edge. In this context, AICA emerges as a ground-breaking Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solution, harnessing the transformative capabilities of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML). As the technology landscape evolves, AICA stands at the forefront, empowering businesses to elevate their data management practices to unprecedented heights.

Empowering Data Cleansing and Enrichment for Unmatched Precision AICA redefines the approach to product and service data management by ushering in an impressive era of speed, cost-effectiveness, and accuracy, leaving traditional methods in the rear-view. This extraordinary feat is achieved through the utilisation of advanced AI and ML capabilities that revolutionise the processes of data cleansing and enrichment.

One of AICA's notable strengths lies in its ability to amplify the efficacy of existing solutions such as Master Data Management (MDM), Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), Product Information Management (PIM), Enterprise Asset Management (EAM), and Content Management Systems (CMS). By ensuring data cleanliness and enrichment, AICA illuminates the path to enhanced data-driven decision-making and process optimisation across diverse business domains.

Unveiling the Elements of the AICA System: Pillars of Data Excellence Delving into the core components of the AICA system reveals a trio of foundational pillars essential for unleashing the power of data-driven excellence. These elements, seamlessly interwoven, are the bedrock of AICA's transformative capabilities:

1) Data Cleansing: Elevating Accuracy At the heart of AICA's capabilities lies the art of data cleansing. This intricate process

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meticulously rectifies errors and disparities that might erode data integrity. AICA employs a range of advanced techniques to achieve this: Language Detection: Leveraging cuttingedge algorithms, AICA identifies and corrects language (including spelling) errors, ensuring consistency and accuracy across the data.

Deduplication: Removing redundancy is crucial for unambiguous data. AICA efficiently identifies and eradicates duplicate entries, streamlining data repositories.

Anomaly Detection: AICA excels at uncovering anomalies and inconsistencies that may have slipped through during various stages of data entry.

Handling Missing Data: AICA seamlessly fills gaps left by missing data points, preserving the completeness and integrity of datasets.

2) Data Enrichment: Igniting Insight Enrichment is the cornerstone of AICA's offerings, infusing data with deeper insights and context. Through advanced techniques, AICA augments data with added value: Long and Short Description Creation: AICA crafts compelling long and short descriptions that captivate and inform, enhancing data comprehensiveness.

Attribute Enrichment: Supplementary attributes are seamlessly integrated, broadening information availability and enriching data context.

C ● lassification and Translation: AICA expertly organises data using classification systems such as GS1 and UNSPSC, bridging language barriers through translation capabilities.

3) Data Comparison: Illuminating Insights In the realm of data-driven decisions, AICA empowers businesses with potent comparison capabilities that shed light on valuable insights: Attribute-Level Matching and Comparison: AICA's sophisticated algorithms facilitate meticulous matching and attribute-level

comparison, offering crucial insights into similarities and discrepancies for informed strategic decisions.

Transformative Applications: Catalysing Progress Across Industries AICA's influence extends far and wide, revolutionizing industries and use cases through its versatile and adaptable capabilities. Its transformative applications encompass: 1. Procurement and Supply Chain Management: AICA's cataloguing prowess empowers procurement and supply chain specialists, enabling precise supplier selection and cost optimization through enriched, classified product and service data.

2. Optimization Projects: Embarking on optimization initiatives? Rely on AICA to ensure data integrity, enabling accurate analysis and well-informed decisions.

3. Audits and Trustworthiness Verification: AICA's data accuracy enhances audit processes, validating the trustworthiness of financial records for accounting firms.

4. Global Mergers and Acquisitions: AICA facilitates seamless data integration, streamlining transition processes in mergers and acquisitions.

5. Software System Implementations: AICA safeguards data integrity during software system implementations, ensuring seamless migration and reliable functionality.

6. Product Comparisons and SEO Enhancement: Marketing and sales professionals harness AICA for attributelevel product comparisons, and enriched, classified data that elevate datadriven marketing strategies and SEO enhancement.

7. Customer Experience Enhancement: AICA transforms customer interactions by facilitating personalized experiences through accurate, enriched product and service data.

8. Compliance and Regulatory Alignment: AICA ensures regulatory compliance by maintaining comprehensive, accurate records and aiding in accurate reporting.

9. Warranty and Maintenance Management: Accurate data ensures efficient tracking

...continued from page 20 of warranties, maintenance schedules, and service history.

10. Inventory and Stock Management: AICA optimizes inventory management by maintaining real-time visibility, reducing overstock or stockouts.

11. Quality Control and Defect Detection: In manufacturing, AICA enhances quality control by identifying anomalies and ensuring consistent product quality.

12. Supplier Relationship Management: AICA assists in evaluating supplier performance, enhancing collaboration and partnerships.

13. Market Analysis and Trend Identification: AICA empowers market analysis and trend identification through enriched, classified data.

14. Forecasting and Predictive Analytics: Accurate, enriched data enables businesses to forecast demand and capitalize on market opportunities.

15. Expansion into New Markets: AICA adapts data to penetrate new markets successfully.

16. Risk Management and Fraud Detection: AICA strengthens risk management and fraud detection efforts through accurate, enriched data.

17. Real-Time Business Intelligence: AICA provides up-to-date business insights, aiding prompt responses to market changes.

18. Product Lifecycle Management: AICA ensures data integrity throughout a product's lifecycle, facilitating informed decisions.

Empowering the Future of Data Management with AICA As AI-driven innovations reshape industries, AICA emerges as a beacon of transformation in data management. With unrivalled speed, accuracy, and cost-effectiveness, AICA empowers businesses to harness their product and service data's full potential.

By enabling comprehensive cleansing, enrichment, and comparison, AICA becomes the cornerstone of data-driven decisionmaking, ushering in operational excellence and propelling businesses toward a brighter future.

In a landscape where data drives success, embracing AICA becomes a strategic imperative, redefining data's role and reaffirming the significance of AI in shaping a smarter tomorrow.

Experience the Future: Discover AICA at the Exhibition We extend an invitation to explore the transformative potential of AICA at our exhibition booth. Immerse yourself in the world of AI-driven data management and witness first-hand how AICA empowers businesses to thrive in an era of unprecedented data possibilities. Join us on a journey of innovation and empowerment, unlocking the true potential of your product and service data.

The Future Beckons: Discover AICA at the Exhibition, and Embrace Data Excellence Like Never Before.

Learning Robots in Everyday Life A new era in robotics is beginning. One in which robots go from being specifically programmed for a certain task, to becoming adaptable learning entities.

Robots will be able to learn, adapt, and effortlessly blend into the various settings of human life. As we move away from painstakingly coded machinery, AI integration allows robots to navigate the unpredictability of daily life. These intelligent robots will support people in unpredictable circumstances which may occur in places such as homes and hospitals. These robots gain perception by using a variety of built-in sensors and collect real-time data to understand their environment e.g., cameras, lidar, IMUs, and bumper sensors. They create complex environment maps by processing information including depth and colour.

The visual collection of data allows AI to further boost the capabilities with computer vision (identifying objects via the camera). For example, the robot can interact with a new object like a key and understand that it will fit a lock. Moreover, that the lock should be opened by turning the key once inserted. While under supervision, imitation and reinforcement learning (where AI is rewarded for doing an action correctly) allows the robot to improve the understanding of the goals.

Including how to perform the actions faster and ensure that it finds the best way to reach that goal. Google’s RT-2 is a powerful example of such a robot. Robots with Cognitive AI have the potential to simplify complicated processes, increase accuracy and production in a variety of industries. These robots promise to increase safety, decrease human error, and pave the way for innovations. Which will alter industries and boost quality of life, by fusing artificial intelligence with physical capabilities.

AI and the Brain Elon Musk’s Neuralink has received significant attention as it is a cutting-edge brain-computer interface (BCI) technology.

Neuralink makes it possible for the human brain to be able communicate directly with machines and other external devices like computers. Which will aid people with disabilities as well. The device is suitable for AI applications like pattern recognition and real-time sensory processing due to its parallel processing capabilities and low energy consumption. As of this year, Neuralink has received FDA approval for human testing. Another exciting technology is Dishbrain. That is computer chips which are fused with brain cells (powered

by AI intelligence) which could spill over to learning robots. Early examples show these Braincells being taught how to play computer game like Pong.

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VENDOR NEWS

MAKE MONEY IN REAL-TIME

Using behavioral social science and machine learning “63% of companies plan to increase or maintain AI and machine learning spending in 2023”

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hen asked to cite the top three drivers behind these budget changes, leading factors included changes in business strategy, cost pressures, and inflation.

But have the costs been alleviated yet?

According to Harvard Business Review, most ML projects fail to deliver value. There are many reasons for this, but we believe that there are 3 fundamental issues that can lead to high failure rates:

of meaning this adds to the data allows companies to communicate more effectively, to offer more relevant recommendations, and understand what customers truly want.

Reliance on historical data doesn’t provide real-time insight.

58% of successful machine learning projects take more than several months to deploy.

Delays happen, which means that at the point of deployment, the data being analysed and predicted on is from the past. As stated, this can’t account for a customers changing behaviour, and crucially, it doesn’t factor in their most recent transactions. Can a deployment based on historical data really predict what customers are going to do in the future? Consider the data from the last

3 years when the Covid pandemic influenced an un-referenceable series of data points.

Can we reliably use this data to predict what customers want this year, or the next?

Our low-code platform increases your speed to market by reducing complexity costs The platform has a no-code environment Workbench, as well as low-code environment Notebooks. Designed to be accessible to everyone in a business – from the Businessperson who needs to drive success. To the Data Scientists who require uncomplicated tools to untangle machine learning complexities. As well as Technologists who require flexibility in the form of code-based customizations that are easy to implement and integrate. ecosystem.Ai’s multi-faceted technology provides a single platform that works within your own environment, or in the cloud. It facilitates open collaboration for all team members to work on the same project, and keep track of all deployments.

Engage with people more authentically using behavioural analysis Generic data science answers the “how” through analysis of data points and trends.

But ecosystem.Ai use Computational Social Science to take this a step further by asking

Deployment Complexity can skyrocket costs.

Putting accurate and successful machine learning projects into production is complex.

The tools to create predictions, build recommenders and configure experiments are costly, complicated and require expertise.

Moving to a low-code, specialised deployment environment reduces these costs immediately, and gives business users more involvement throughout the lifecycle of the project.

Current predictions don’t account for everchanging human behaviour.

Although machine processes are largely designed to target, speak to, and engage with humans; most of the patterns and correlations it identifies don’t tell you much about behavior. Ai needs to advance and factor in human behaviour and context. The extra layer The ecosystem.Ai Platform is built on 3 foundational pillars

This is ecosystem.Ai’s area of expertise. Our revolutionary platform integrates Computational Social Science to bridge the gap between machine and human intelligence. Providing analytics from a human and behavioural context, we help companies build behavioral models in their own environment and get their real-time predictions into market faster. Offering the tools to make money by learning while in production and save money by avoiding complicated implementation costs.

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VENDOR NEWS

the “why” and “what next”. Uncovering this deeper level of understanding reveals a multitude of untapped data patterns to identify real human behavioral nuances.

Every digital interaction leaves a transactional trail that gives insight into the behaviours of a human. Analysing this trail as it plays out in real-time, helps you make better predictions about that individual. Companies can structure offers and engagements based on the rhythm and actions of a customer, while continuously testing and experimenting with novel offers to spark interest.

Capitalize on emerging trends and ritualisticpatterns with real-time analysis Companies need to evolve. There must be frequent continuous cycles of experimentation to keep pace with changing behaviors. Our real-time engine makes this possible by giving your machine-learning models more accuracy and relevance, right now. Allowing you to change configurations, tweak engagements, and tailor offers and messages as customers interact with you.

Real-time means no more waiting for batch processes to analyze performance.You can let your customers reactions guide decisions as you view their real-time interactions. This is a game-changer as it takes the element of guesswork out. With predictions there is benefit to using historical data. But in realtime you don’t necessarily need data to get started. Our experimentation process means you can start building relevant predictions with no data.

Using generative AI in the workbench Continuous will catapult your business to success. Then add your messages to the experimentation’s powerful real-time feedback system, and continuously learn from your customers to enhance both system knowledge and actionable outputs.

always be experimenting. When you increase the frequency of experiments and deployments, you stay more current and more competitive.

Recommend the right things at the right time to the right people

Making the shift to implementing machine learning is complicated and costly. We have taken the complexity out of productionising machine learning by incorporating various technologies into the ecosystem.Ai Platform stack. Our platform combines AI with real-time behaviour analytics, giving insights beyond simple historical data analysis.

Experience a new dimension of human intelligence that enhances customer engagement and interactions.

Make money in real time with ecosystem.Ai.

ecosystem.Ai are advocates for appealing to the human as a changing being. We have structured our recommenders to always remember the human, by offering fresh, new options to customers to introduce an element of novelty. Our recommenders offer further enrichment to businesses by providing accurate and timely view of customer takeup. Real-time information combined with human behavioural analysis, allows for more personalized, targeted offers at pivotal times in the customer journey.

Engagements are enhanced, as the customers behavior determines the design, structure, amount of information, and wording that can be used. The recommender can then offer the best options depending on feedback from the customer in real-time.

Multiple recommenders and experiments can be run at the same time, all easily managed from one central location - the ecosystem.Ai Platform. Companies should

“

”

Incorporating generative ai to help you engage like never before Generative Ai has taken this year by storm, becoming available for everyone to use. Gen AI has a myriad of applications and 70% of Gen Z report using the technology, 52% of them trust the technology to help them make informed decisions. But very often, results generated can be misleading or downright inaccurate. This is what we call the hallucination.

Our Fact Injection functionality helps to reduce the hallucination by allowing you point to a source. The problem of minimising the hallucination common in generative AI models is tackled excellently by ecosystem.

Ai, ensuring the process is seamless and uncomplicated.

With Fact Injection and generative AI, you can write up-to-date engagement messages that change as your customers change. In the ecosystem.Ai Workbench, you can save the messages to a workspace then add directly to your experimentation pipeline.

Identify tangible evidence of offer takeup in a personalized customer basis, and write according to your findings. Learn from each customer which option suits them best, and which message style they are most likely to engage with.

SHOW EDITION 2023 | SYNAPSE

25

VENDOR NEWS

BUILDING BLOCKS OF A CLOUD NATIVE AI DATA CENTER / Opinion piece by Werner Coetzee, Business Development Executive at Data Sciences Corporation. Credits: ITWeb for publishing the original article /

The Next Era of Enterprise AI Technologies The cloud revolution has changed the face of IT operations. Business leaders are looking for platforms that serve a broad userbase and deliver non-stop services dynamically while providing performance and the lowest cost.

With HPC and Supercomputers becoming more prevalent in commercial use cases and forming part of primary compute environments, new supercomputers must be architected to deliver as close to bare-metal performance but do so in a multi-tenant fashion. Historically supercomputers were designed to run single applications (As discussed in our previous article Super Compute in Enterprise AI).

Naturally, it stands to reason that a Cloud-Native Supercomputer is needed to deliver on these demands that are fast becoming de facto table stakes for AI in the Enterprise. Cloud-Native Supercomputer architecture aims to maintain the fastest possible compute, storage, and network performance while meeting cloud services requirements, such as least-privilege security policies and workload isolation, data protection, and instant, on-demand AI and HPC service. It seems so simple!

the food in serial like a CPU, basically going from one house to another. If they spend 5 minutes per delivery, it will take 100 minutes to complete the delivery. In contrast, if the delivery service behaved like a GPU, then all 20 orders would be delivered simultaneously by 20 scooters, reducing the delivery time by 95 minutes. (This is a hypothetical scenario, please bear with me!)

Now that you wonder what fast food to get let's get back into the digital world.

CPU with GPU acceleration is key to any AI & HPC success, but these building blocks alone don't meet the Cloud-Native requirements set out earlier. So, to move from traditional Supercomputing to CloudNative Supercomputing, we need the next fundamental building block, the Data Processing Unit (DPU).

Dealing with Cloud-Native Tasks As brilliant as CPUs and GPUs are in delivering the raw performance that AI workloads need, in a traditional supercomputer architecture, Cloud-Native tasks would have to take some of that processing power to handle the tasks associated, such as shared platform tasks, security, and isolation tasks, data protection task and many more infrastructure

management and communication tasks that make multi-tenant supercomputing work.

The trade-off in AI processing power is potentially significant.

This is where the DPU becomes critical.

All the tasks required to enable Cloud-Native Supercomputing are offloaded from the CPU and GPU to the DPU for processing.

Think about our fast-food example.

Imagine the scooter driver had to package the order and decide which scooter the order needs to go to be delivered to the correct house. Well, not only would there be chaos with mixed-up orders, even if they did get it right, it would take time and impact the delivery time to the customer. The answer is to let the drivers focus on driving, navigating, and getting to the house as quickly as possible. The task of isolating the orders, packaging them correctly, and getting them to the right scooter is offloaded to an order controller at the fast-food place.

In a similar principle, by migrating the Cloud-Native specific task from the CPU and GPU to the DPU, the architecture ensures maximum performance in executing AI & HPC tasks and the security and isolation required for multi-tenant environments that optimises performance and return on investment.

Cloud-Native Supercomputing Key Ingredients (CPU, GPU, DPU) Cloud-Native computing needs vital ingredients to deliver on those requirements. The core of these is CPUs and GPU accelerators. Without getting too technical, CPUs are the brains of any computing platform and handle all the standard management and precision tasks needed to run a server in AI. They have one weakness: they process all their instructions in serial. That's where GPUs come to the rescue. GPU's process tasks in parallel and deal with tasks and instructions that don't have to be precise, but they execute them way faster.

To illustrate, imagine your favourite fast food that you just ordered on your favourite delivery app. Now let's say that 20 houses in your area also ordered from the same fast-food place. If the delivery service only had one scooter, they would have to deliver

26 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

A NVIDIA BlueField DPU supports offload of security, communications and management tasks to create an efficient cloud-native supercomputer.

...continues on page 28

Building Blocks of a Cloud Native AI Data Center

SHOW EDITION 2023 | SYNAPSE

27

LANGUAGE NEWS ...continued from page 26

GOOGLE ADDS FIRST AFRICAN LANGUAGE TO BARD / Read original article here /

Google says Bard, its newly-developed conversational artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot, will now be available in 40 new languages, including Swahili – its first African language.

T

he chatbot will now also be available in 59 new countries and territories.

According to a statement, the expansion includes new features that allow users of the generative AI tool to better customise their experience and boost their creativity.

In February, Google announced it was testing Bard, as part of the tech giant’s continued investment in AI across the board.

The new chatbot has the ability to interact in conversational dialogue form, allowing users to ask questions and receive detailed answers, similar to ChatGPT. It draws on information from the web to provide responses.

With the latest expansion, Bard is now available in most of the world, including countries in the European Union, and in the most widely-spoken languages, including Chinese, German, Arabic, Hindi and Spanish, says Google.

Users can now access Bard in their preferred language, with text-to-speech enabled in eight languages.

“We’re excited that this is Bard’s largest expansion to date – we see its global availability as a great democratiser of

28 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

knowledge,” notes Dorothy Ooko, Google head of communications and public affairs, Sub-Saharan Africa.

“That’s why we created Bard: to help users explore that curiosity, augment your imagination and ultimately get your ideas off the ground − not just by answering questions, but by helping build on them.”

According to Unesco, Swahili is among the 10 most widely-spoken languages in the world, with more than 200 million speakers.

The inclusion of more languages and territories will help to make Bard more inclusive and safer, through feedback from a wider range of users, says Google.

"The launch of Bard in Swahili is a major milestone, as it allows Bard to reach even more people in Africa, where approximately 150 million people speak Swahili,” comments Rachael Ndichu, language manager at Google.

“This makes Bard more accessible to everyone in the region, and we believe it has the potential to be a powerful tool for creativity and learning. We are excited to see how people in the region use Bard to explore their ideas and discover new things.”

As part of the expansion, the updates include ‘listen to responses’, which is available in over 40 languages and allows users to listen to Bard’s responses once they select the sound icon.

Users can also now adjust Bard’s responses by changing the tone and style of its responses to five different options.

Users can also pin and rename their conversations with Bard, making it easier to revisit conversations that contain important information or ideas later, notes Google. Users can also share responses with friends using shareable links, making it easier to collaborate on projects or get feedback on ideas.

The Cloud-Native Supercomputer needs the third brain to build faster and more efficient systems. With traditional supercomputers, the workloads sometimes must wait while the CPU handles a mundane communication task. This is called system noise.

The DPU or third brain allows AI to compute tasks and communication and management tasks smoothly.

Today's AI enterprise needs a turnkey, cloud-native supercomputing solution that can dynamically respond to the demands of its users, delivering resources right-sized to every workload with secure multi-tenancy. Purpose-built for demanding enterprise environments using NVIDIA Bluefield DPUs and NVIDIA Base Command™ Manager, NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD provides multi-tenancy with safe isolation of users and data, without sacrificing bare-metal performance.

A cloud-native supercomputer, such as NVIDIA DGX SuperPOD offers innovators access to the highestperformance infrastructure with the same assured security found in the cloud.

Now go collect your food!

Our next article will explore how OnPrem Cloud-Native AI infrastructure complements Public Cloud AI platforms .

Data Sciences Corporation is a leading IT solutions provider and emerging technologies systems integrator. Contact us for more information about our NVIDIA AI/ML Supercomputers for the Enterprise.

Watch our video explaining the difference between CPU and GPU here: https://www. linkedin.com/feed/ update/urn:li:activity: 6853945933231722496/ To learn more about the NVIDIA BlueField DPU watch this video: https://www.linkedin. com/ feed/update/ urn:li:activity: 6856583741754736640/

Seeing Beyond the Hallucinations: The Crucial Need for Artificial Intelligence (AI) Literacy

How AI systems (sometimes) lie to us and how South Africa is preparing for an AI-driven future.

The year 2023 has seen a significant boom in the global adoption of AI technologies across various industries, with South Africa being no exception to the trend. 46% of companies in Mzansi report actively piloting AI within their organisations, according to ITweb, while a recent piece from Techcabal shows a steady upward trend in interest, as measured by google search data. But is South African adequately aware of, or prepared for, the limitations of AI systems? This piece explores this question.

Why now for AI?

But the technology is not without its limitations

Before we assess our preparedness, let’s take a more detailed look at the current AI renaissance. Generative AI tools, named for their ability to produce novel text, imagery, code and digital media, have rapidly gained prominence.

Despite its many benefits, AI is not without limitations. One of the most common failures in generative AI systems is “hallucinations,” a phenomenon characterised by AI models generating incorrect information but presenting it as if it were fact.

Within a year of ChatGPTs introduction: • One-third of global organisations report using generative AI tools regularly.

• Nearly one-quarter of C-suite executives personally use gen AI tools for work • More than one-quarter of respondents from companies using AI say gen AI is already on their boards’ agendas.

• 40% of organizations plan to increase their investment in AI overall due to advances in gen AI. This current wave of adoption can be attributed to several key factors; advancements in machine learning algorithms have made AI tools more sophisticated and capable, increased computational power has limited the barrier to entry, and the availability of big data has fueled the tremendous data appetite needed to train capable models.

The net effect is an incredibly powerful toolset. A toolset that has enabled global chemical manufacturerw to achieve over 90% accuracy on raw material price forecasting, marketing and sales teams to see 15% increases in conversion rates, and healthcare practitioners to diagnose cancer with accuracy well beyond even the most skilled human doctors.

40%

“

of organizations plan to increase their investment in AI

While some instances are innocuous - like Google’s chatbot Bard incorrectly claiming that the James Webb Space Telescope took the first image of a planet outside of the solar system - others can be outright detrimental, like Bing AI mischaracterising earnings statements from GAP. AI systems are a complex combination of several factors, and these can sometimes mix to create inaccuracies, both subtle and blatant. Factors contributing to these hallucinations include outdated or low-quality training data, incorrectly classified or labeled data, factual errors in the training data, insufficient programming to interpret information correctly, lack of context provided by the user, and difficulty in inferring colloquialisms or sarcasm.

So while the technology is incredible, it is not infallible. It is the duty of the people who make use of these systems to be keenly aware of its limitations and to be responsible and ethical custodians of its capabilities.

Is South Africa Prepared?

South Africa has a unique blend of cultures, languages, and socio-economic challenges that make it an ideal candidate for leading the way in AI literacy. The country is already internationally focused with a burgeoning tech industry and a young population eager to engage with digital technologies.

But digital adoption and literacy remains low. As of 2023 72.3% of South Africans are connected to the internet while a remarkable gap of 70 000 people exists in critical digital-based roles.

The 2022 Department of Higher Education and Training report on Supply and Demand of Skills in South Africa indicates that skills shortages and high levels of unemployment, particularly youth unemployment, are amongst the stubborn concerns facing the nation’s digital adoption The Presidential Commission on Fourth Industrial Revolution’s recent report emphasised the need to invest in Human Capital with the Department of Communications and Digital Technologies setting a target number of 90 000 beneficiaries who must be taken through the pipeline of digital skills development on various digital related skills, including Artificial Intelligence.

So while we face significant challenges, there seems to be will to develop these crucially needed skills, we hope that this will translates into implementation.

If you are looking to kickstart your organisational AI journey, you may be interested in our AI training for future-focused leaders. This full day training session equips business leaders with the skills needed to effectively implement AI across their organistaions and navigate this rapidly evolving space.

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VENDOR NEWS

5 WAYS GOOGLE HEALTH IS USING AI IN AFRICA Every day across Africa, people turn to Google products like Search, YouTube and Fitbit for insights about their health and wellbeing.

But many may not know that we have also been researching how AI can help improve healthcare outcomes for people, and how AI can empower our partners to deliver better health services — from improving maternal health outcomes to building useful digital tools for healthcare workers.

T

o mark the upcoming Africa HealthTech Summit in Kigali, Rwanda — an event that brings together a diverse group of digital health innovators and public health experts to share knowledge and ideas to help transform the healthcare landscape in Africa — here’s how we’re working with partners across Africa to research and explore new AI-powered healthcare tools.

Searching for skin conditions using images Describing skin rashes or moles accurately using words alone can be challenging.

Since earlier this year, users in the US and Japan have been able to use Google

30 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

Lens to search for information about skin conditions with images instead of text.

Now, this feature is being expanded to cover the entire African continent. People can simply capture a photo, upload it to Lens, and discover visually similar matches. This feature works well for those times where you're not sure how to describe something on your body, like a bump on your lip, a line on your nails or hair loss on your head.

Improving maternal health outcomes in Kenya Ultrasounds are effective in identifying potential issues in early pregnancy, but capturing and interpreting ultrasound is a complex medical imaging technique that requires years of training and experience. Due in part to a shortage of experts, up to 50% of pregnant people in low-resource settings do not receive ultrasound screenings during pregnancy.

In our paper published last year, we show that AI models can make ultrasounds more accessible to lightly trained ultrasound operators in under-resourced settings.

Now, we’re working with Jacaranda Health, a Kenyan nonprofit focused on improving health outcomes for mothers and babies in government hospitals, to validate the use of AI in clinical settings. Through this partnership, we’ll conduct research to understand the current approach to ultrasounds in Kenya and explore how new AI tools can support point-of-care ultrasound access for pregnant women.

Using Open Health Stack to build apps for healthcare workers Across Africa, frontline health workers form a critical link between a community and the healthcare system. Unfortunately, they often face challenges around care coordination and data quality. To build mobile-first, technology-based healthcare solutions that enable better care, healthcare developers in Africa can now use Google’s Open Health Stack to build next-generation digital health tools.

These tools make it easier to adopt the HL7 FHIR standard. To help upskill local developers, we partnered with Kabarak University and IntelliSOFT Consulting, to host our first Open Health Stack bootcamp in Kenya.

Screening for tuberculosis using AI According to the World Health Organisation, tuberculosis (TB) is the ninth leading cause of death worldwide, with over 25% of TB deaths occurring in Africa. While TB is treatable, it requires cost-effective screening solutions to help catch the disease early and reduce community spread. This year, Google partnered with an AI-based organization headed by Right to Care, a not-for-profit entity with extensive experience in TB care within Africa, to make AI-powered screenings widely available across Sub-Saharan Africa. Our partners have committed to performing 100,000 free AI-powered TB screenings during our collaboration.

Supporting access to emergency obstetric care in Nigeria According to recent estimates, though only 0.06% of annual global births occur in Nigeria; the country disproportionately contributes 28% of global maternal deaths every year,, and evidence shows that long travel times play a part in negative maternal outcomes. We recently released a tool in Nigeria, developed in collaboration with the OnTIME consortium, to help governments and public health organizations address challenges around accessing emergency obstetric care. By using Google’s internal directions API — the same API that powers navigation in Google Maps — decision makers can see data around average travel times to the nearest emergency obstetric facilities for different regions, which helps them better understand where expectant mothers may have limited geographic access to lifesaving care.

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

A SOUND OF HOPE FOR SOUTH AFRICA IN THE FIGHT AGAINST TRAFFICKING

/ By Gregg Barrett /

The release of the movie, the Sound of Freedom, while not representative of all the facets of current day human trafficking, has helped initiate broader conversations about modern exploitation.

For many who watch the movie the feeling will be that doing something is better than doing nothing. But what can be done that will actually help? I was presented with this question in 2021 by an antihuman trafficking (AHT) NGO operating in South Africa and internationally. Prior, the organisation had been operating at one of South Africa’s busiest airports, and in the course of their work had uncovered systemic corruption and organised crime involved in trafficking at the airport. As a result, their security clearance had been revoked preventing them from operating in the airport. Their cost per intercept was around 300 USD which needed to be reduced to around 50 USD to align with funding. Astutely they believed that turning to the adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) methods would allow them to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of their work, and that this could be scaled without a resulting scaling in cost and headcount. Could there be a greater application of AI than that which results in the saving of lives? i From an institutional governance standpoint, South Africa’s law enforcement institutions are not resourced to the same extent as many of those in the developed western world. Under such conditions trafficking thrives, elevating the role of civil society organisations. However, as with law enforcement, these civil society organisations are not equipped with the optimal tools to enable the application of AI in the fight against trafficking. In understanding the scope and nature of human trafficking in South Africa, the United States Agency for International Development released a first report from a larger authoritative study. Five key points from the report are instructive: Human trafficking is indeed a serious, pervasive, and systemic problem in South Africa, that seamlessly intersperses with other crimes and social phenomena — including gender-based violence,

32 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

prostitution, organised crime, missing persons, irregular migration, child abuse and labour disputes, to name a few.

South Africa is not nearly equipped or co-ordinated enough to deal with this crime as effectively as it should or could, and enabling factors such as corruption, complicity, and compromise of officials and other AHT role players is a constant stark background to AHT efforts.

There is poor record keeping, inaccessibility of official trafficking data, and the absence of an integrated information system required to collate and analyse specific information.

A lack of proactive investigations and intelligence sharing, and a largely inactive national AHT task team, means that evidence of South Africa as a transit country is not proactively pursued with international counterparts.

Citing a 2019 multi-country report by the UN, the report says South Africa is a “main destination” for smuggled and trafficked persons on the African continent. According to that 2019 report: “Most Africans see South Africa as the easiest country of transit to reach Europe or the Americas”, and it is “an origin and transit country for trafficking towards Europe and North America, and for trafficking and smuggling to and from Latin America and Asia”.

Returning to 2021 in my engagements with the NGO, the first step became obvious. We needed to focus on the data. Data is the necessary input for the training of AI models and their deployment (inference). In North America for example, Polaris operates the U.S. National Human Trafficking Hotline.

Through that work, they have built the largest known dataset on human trafficking in North America, with the data informing real time strategies. Underpinning Polaris is what is known as a data management platform. It is this nontrivial piece of technology that effectively enables the application of AI to AHT. At a high level a data management platform provides the capability needed to store, manage, share, find and use data for AI. A database is not a data management platform. Rather a data management platform is required for a single point of

data ingestion. As the name implies this is to ingest data in all its forms (structured, unstructured, and semi-structured), and with all key data transfer approaches (batch, micro-batch, and streaming). To do this the data management platform provides a highly configurable set of data integration tools that extend far beyond typical extracttransform-load (ETL) or extract-loadtransform (ELT) solutions.

In the context of AHT the data management platform provides the operational fabric that enables the access control framework to restrict access to sensitive information at a granular level, ensuring that analysts see only the specific data points that are necessary to complete their work. This ensures that data is being used effectively to have a positive impact, while protecting the privacy of individuals.

The platform also enables detailed privacy impact assessments to codify the risks of the data used and the development of mitigation plans.

Beyond this the existence of a data management platform more fully enables the utilisation of mobility data, a financial intelligence unit, a research hub, and philanthropic engineering support. Mobility data is needed to generate heatmaps to identify choke points for placing new stations with human monitors to intercept trafficked persons. The financial intelligence units’ purpose is to train financial services and anti-money laundering staff on the data management platform itself, and allows these professionals to share knowledge, information, and best practices in real-time.

In addition, this unit is intended to help survivors of human trafficking get access to banking services that they would not otherwise qualify for because of poor credit and other issues related to their trafficking experience. The research hub is there to bolster the data science / AI capabilities of the AHT organisations by establishing collaborations with academia and industry.

This includes a data facility to provide key data to researchers, academics, law enforcement officers and others seeking to deepen knowledge and understanding in the fight against trafficking. Lastly, philanthropic engineering support is ...continues on page 34

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP ...continued from page 32

intimately connected to a commercial operation, and develops deep, hands-on, and often long-term relationships with NGOs and social sector organisations. This includes on-site engineering to develop foundational understanding of the respective fields enabling the establishment of broader collaborations of players to work on solving social problems. In the context of AHT, philanthropic engineering support provides the capability to drive on-the-ground action with partners that: have the capacity to utilise data management and AI for maximum impact; with organisations that have data and develop data sources; will benefit from AI analysis of the data; and have staff in place to act on the insights to drive action. Importantly, while philanthropic engineering support directly improves and save lives, the engagements also have a powerful impact internally, helping to attract, retain, and engage employees. The challenges being tackled require world class engineers and in South Africa there is a dire need to create opportunities to cultivate this talent – to offer meaningful work and the chance to make a difference.

Yet, here in South Africa a Polaris like data management platform has not been in sight. Enter anti-money laundering (AML). As with human trafficking, South Africa is plagued by money laundering.

In February the country was greylisted by global financial crime watchdog the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) for not fully complying with international standards around the prevention of money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing.

Presently, each bank in South Africa undertakes AML mostly in isolation. A recent Bank for International Settlements project confirmed that collaborative analysis and learning approaches were more effective in detecting money laundering networks than the current siloed approach in which financial institutions carry out analysis in isolation. By the numbers, a LexisNexis report found South Africa’s largest banks spent on average 12.3 million USD in financial crime compliance operations in 2021. Further, the total projected cost of financial crime compliance in South Africa increased by 65% between 2019 and 2021, from $2.3 billion USD to $3.8 billion USD. Contrasting deficiencies in human trafficking and money laundering show significant overlaps. This is unsurprising given that both fundamentally involve intelligence gathering, requiring the very same technological toolsets. Unquestionably, AI is the future for AML and AHT, and South Africa requires an industry wide approach - an industry wide data management platform. Just such an intervention has been initiated, where the intention is that the data management platform and its related operations for AML will be placed into a shared entity co-owned by industry. There is precedent for such. The country’s banks collaborate and co-own Bankserv, the automated clearing house. For South Africa’s largest banks an industry wide AML platform will result in significantly enhanced AML capabilities and cost reductions to around one third of their current financial crime compliance spend. For the country, eventual removal from the FATF greylisting. And for South Africa’s AHT organisations, the provision of a world class platform enabling the application of AI to fight trafficking.

In summary, out of South Africa’s struggles arises an opportunity for the country to be a global leader in the fight against trafficking and money laundering. Technological interventions like this do not come to pass by chance but through leadership. For what is it if we have these technological capabilities but fail to implement? Do we not have an ethical obligation? We must be pragmatic and assume that based on experience Government leadership is unlikely to materialise, and be optimistic that there are leaders in industry with the vision and fortitude to pursue this endeavour that will ultimately save lives. That there are those who are motivated in their hearts and minds to actually do something that will make a difference.

34 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

“

Contrasting deficiencies in human trafficking and money laundering show significant overlaps. This is unsurprising given that both fundamentally involve intelligence gathering, requiring the very same technological toolsets.

”

Ways in which long-range research in AI could be applied to the fight against human trafficking, see: Bliss, N. et al. (2021).

CCC/Code 8.7: Applying AI in the Fight Against Modern Slavery. https://arxiv.org/abs/2106.13186 An algorithm to identify similarities across escort ads, making it easier for law enforcement to identify human traffickers, see: Carnegie Mellon University. (2021). Algorithm Uses Online Ads To Identify Human Traffickers. https://www.ml.cmu.edu/news/ news-archive/2021-2025/2021/april/machine-learning-aialgorithm-uses-online-ads-identify-human-traffickers.html Algorithms to extract signatures in images, such as specific tattoo designs linked to human trafficking networks, see: MIT News. (2021). Turning technology against human traffickers. https://news.mit.edu/2021/turning-technology-against-humantraffickers-0506 Using AI to reveal trends in payments and help identify victims of modern slavery, see: World Economic Forum. (2020). How AI can help combat slavery and free 40 million victims. https:// www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/11/how-ai-can-help-combatmodern-slavery/ Examples of the work done by the Stanford Human Trafficking Data Lab to combat human trafficking, see: Stanford University.

(2021). Melding Artificial Intelligence and Algorithms with Health Care and Policy to Combat Human Trafficking. https:// fsi.stanford.edu/news/melding-ai-and-algorithms-health-careand-policy-combat-human-trafficking For an index of governance in Africa see: Mo Ibrahim Foundation. (2020). 2020 Ibrahim Index of African Governance: Key Findings. https://mo.ibrahim.foundation/news/2020/2020ibrahim-index-african-governance-key-findings For a global comparison across various governance indicators see: The Worldwide Governance Indicators project. (2020).

Worldwide Governance Indicators. https://info.worldbank.org/ governance/wgi/ With an average score of 32, Sub-Saharan Africa is the lowest performing region on the Transparency International Corruption Perceptions Index, see: Transparency International. (2021). CPI 2020: Sub-Saharan Africa. https://www.transparency.org/en/ news/cpi-2020-sub-saharan-africa

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THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

HARNESSING THE POWER OF DATA The Matogen Applied Insights Revolution Are you an undergraduate student? Click here In an age where information is the bedrock of progress and innovation, the ability to harness and interpret data has become an indispensable tool. With the rapid advancements in data analytics and artificial intelligence (AI), there’s a global impetus to integrate these technologies into business models and strategies. But how does one bridge the gap between the vast expanse of data and the tangible, actionable insights it holds? Enter Matogen Applied Insights.

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Founded in 2018, Matogen Applied Insights has anchored itself as a luminary in the realm of data science and AI. Based in Stellenbosch, South Africa, it has adeptly combined international best practices in statistics and AI with

the raw, unbridled power of human intelligence. The company’s foray into sectors as diverse as financial services, agriculture, health, and neuro-psychology underscores its versatility and commitment to innovation.

Jacobus Eksteen, the CEO and co-founder of Matogen Applied Insights, articulates their vision:

“We’ve always collaborated with our clients, melding business acumen with the frontier of tools, techniques, and technology. Our aim is not just to provide solutions but to foster transformation.”

The company’s recent alliance with Altair, a global leader in computational science and AI, has further bolstered its offering. Altair’s renowned data analytics and AI platform, Altair RapidMiner, is now available to Matogen’s clientele in South Africa.

For the uninitiated, the Altair RapidMiner platform is a paradigm of efficiency and innovation.

Software like Altair SLC™, Altair RapidMiner Studio, Altair Monarch, and Altair Panopticon offer a comprehensive approach to data analytics, covering data ingestion, business intelligence, and decisionmaking. The hallmark of this suite is Altair Units, Altair’s gold standard token-based software licensing model, which enables businesses to seamlessly access all of Altair’s technology solutions without having to incur additional costs or procure additional licenses.

Whether you are a small business or a large conglomerate relying on cloud technologies or on-premises systems, Altair RapidMiner offers something for everyone.

Ariel Hadar, managing director and country manager for Altair

Israel and Altair South Africa, succinctly captures the essence of this collaboration, “Our regional customers now have a local ally with profound expertise in data analytics and AI, especially within sectors like banking and insurance.

We’re elated to have Matogen Applied Insights join our channel partner network, aiding clients in leveraging their data’s potential.”

Matogen Applied Insights’ mission transcends mere business objectives. It aims to democratize data science and AI, ensuring these tools are accessible to entities of all sizes. Its partnership with Altair is emblematic of this mission.

Together, they are poised to empower South African enterprises with the instruments they need to flourish in a data-driven landscape.

For undergraduate students, especially those within the natural science departments, there is immense potential to tap into this realm. The fusion of science with data analytics offers a goldmine of opportunities, from research and development to entrepreneurship.

The synergy between the scientific and artistic disciplines, championed

by platforms like The Synapse, can find a confluence in the world of data science. After all, what is data analytics, if not an art form where raw data is sculpted into insights, strategies, and innovations?

The alliance between Matogen Applied Insights and Altair is not just a business partnership; it’s a clarion call to organizations, students, and individuals. It beckons them to embrace the future to harness the boundless possibilities that data offers. In a world inundated with information, it’s not just about having data; it’s about understanding, interpreting, and using it to pave the path forward.

AI EXPO AFRICA 2023

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40 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

AI EXPO AFRICA 2023

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...JOINING THE 6TH EDITION OF AI EXPO AFRICA 2023

This is the 6th edition of AI Expo Africa and the second running at our new home at the SCC, Sandton in the heart of Johannesburg, South Africa. The Gauteng and Tshwane Regions of South Africa are home to the largest concentration of new and emerging 4IR tech companies in Africa dubbed the “AI Tech Capital of Africa” allied to a strong demand for vendor solutions, jobs and skills in this category. By attending AI Expo Africa, it offers you a great opportunity to explore “The City of Gold” and the Administrative Capital of South Africa including the region’s tourist attractions, game parks and stunning cultural sites. If you are coming to Jozi for the first time check out The Tripadvisor list of “Things to Do in Johannesburg” to include memories you won’t forget just scan QR code here >>>>

SHOW EDITION 2023 | SYNAPSE

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Experience Hands-Free Communication & Two Way Data Sharing

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Invest in Tshwane South Africa’s Capital City, the City of Tshwane, is situated in the province of Gauteng, the economic centre of South Africa. As the seat of government, Tshwane is the country’s administrative hub and houses 134 embassies, 30 international organisations making it second only to Washington DC in terms of the concentration of the diplomatic and foreign missions. It is also home to over 30 Johannesburg Stock Exchange-listed companies as well as various multinational companies.

The city is home to four universities and various research institutes and its knowledge and information industry is well-developed. Tshwane has a high literacy rate, a large concentration of financial and business services in the region, support of educational institutions and communication infrastructure, including broadband capacity.

Why Tshwane?

• Tshwane is the knowledge centre of South Africa. The City has a high concentration of academic, medical, social science,

technology and scientific institutions which produces 90% of medical, science and technology research in the country and 60% of the country’s overall research output. The city has a student population of 60000 and high levels of literacy, giving investors access to a skilled workforce and continuous learning.

• Your investment is safe with us, we are governed by investment protection legislation, The Protection of Investment Act 22 of

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VENDOR NEWS

AI SOLUTION MONITORS YOUR PATIENTS FOR YOU

Dr Benji Ozynski (MBBCh Wits) CEO Engage Mx

With the introduction of Engage Mx, a new Al-driven solution in the private healthcare industry of South Africa, doctors can now offer a more proactive and personalised approach to managing their patients, especially those with chronic conditions.

Engage Mx is an intelligent software that integrates with a doctor's practice management application (PMA) and serves as an Al-driven smart assistant for the management of chronic patients and patients due for screening. This innovative solution identifies non-compliant patients and recalls them back to the doctors practice, empowering doctors to provide proactive, personalised healthcare to every single patient at scale, without the need for additional work.

44 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

T

he launch of Engage MX is a significant step forward for private healthcare in South Africa, as it addresses some of the pressing challenges that doctors face when managing patients with chronic conditions. According to a recent survey, about 80% of healthcare costs in South Africa are attributed to chronic conditions such as diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. These conditions require ongoing management, monitoring, and treatment, and the burden of care often falls on doctors.

However, with Engage Mx, doctors can now provide a more proactive approach to managing chronic patients. The software tracks patients' medical history and flags any gaps in care, such as missed appointments or overdue tests. It also sends automated reminders to patients to schedule appointments or tests and generates personalized care plans for each patient based on their medical history and condition.

Dr Erika Kleynhans a general practitioner in Pretoria has been using Engage Mx in her practice for the past six months and has

VENDOR NEWS

already seen a significant improvement in patient outcomes. "Before Engage Mx, I had to rely on patients to remember to come back for appointments or to schedule follow up tests, which often led to gaps in care and a decline in their health outcomes. but with Engage Mx, I can now track and manage all my patients' care in one place and provide them with the personalised care they need to stay healthy." Engage Mx is not only beneficial to patients but also to doctors.

It increases practice revenue, improves practice sustainability and reputation.

By providing a more proactive approach to managing chronic patients, doctors can reduce the risk of medical malpractice claims and improve their medico-legal protection. furthermore. Engage Mx can help doctors optimize their practice's revenue by identifying patients who are due for screening and recalling them back to the practice. This can lead to increased revenue through additional consultations and tests.

Dr Kleynhans also noted that Engage Mx has improved the efficiency of her practice. "Before, I would spend hours each day managing my patients' care, tracking their medical histories, and sending out reminders. But with Engage Mx, all of that is automated, which frees up more time for me to focus on providing quality care to

my patients" In addition to chronic care management, Engage Mx also helps doctors build stronger relationships with their patients. Overall, Engage Mx is a gamechanger in the private healthcare industry of South Africa.

With its Al-driven smart assistant, doctors can now provide proactive, personalised care to their patients at scale.

without having to do any additional work.

The solution is beneficial to both patients and doctors, and it has the potential to revolutionise the way healthcare is delivered in South Africa. As the healthcare industry continues to evolve, it is essential to embrace technology and innovation to improve patient outcomes.

Call to Action The future of proactive healthcare, created for doctors by doctors.

Engage Mx is an intelligent software that recalls eligible patients to their Activate the Power of EngageMx in Your Practice Today Sales@marketmx.co.za

“

In addition to chronic care management, Engage Mx also helps doctors build stronger relationships with their patients. Overall, Engage Mx is a game-changer in the private healthcare industry of South Africa. With its Al-driven smart assistant, doctors can now provide proactive, personalised care to their patients at scale. without having to do any additional work.

”

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Leverage AI (law)fully Join the Trustworthy AI programme launch webinar If AI is in your future, you can’t afford to miss this launch.

Leverage AI (law)fully through the Michalsons Trustworthy AI Programme, a formula to answer your AI governance questions at every stage of your AI project. From getting governance right to developing an AI roadmap for your organisation, determining what laws you must comply with, and how to recruit and train the right people for your AI team.

Trustworthy AI Programme Launch Public Webinar Date 09 November 2023 Time 10:00 AM Register today!

www.michalsons.com

THOUGHT LEADERSHIP

LEVERAGING AI (LAW) FULLY / By Nathan-Ross Adams, LLB LLM, Associate, Michalsons /

Alright, lovely readers! Today, we’re chatting about our pal, Artificial Intelligence, or AI – because who can be bothered to say those long words all day?

P

icture it: computers suggesting what to binge-watch next, navigating your car, or even lending doctors a hand in figuring out what’s up with your health.

Brilliant they are, but do they know how to play nice?

Imagine having a dog that's not just clever but genius-level. It brings your slippers, makes a cappuccino, and maybe even tells you when it’s about to rain. Fab, right?

But what if one day it fancies fetching the neighbour's slippers too? Oops. Now we're in a pickle, and not the cute, doggy-video kind.

We’d all agree they’re clever, but do they know how to act properly?

Just like we’d teach our super-dog to keep its paws off others’ slippers, we must ensure AI keeps its circuits clean, too — especially legally.

Steering AI without sticking to the rules is like trying to captain a ship without a compass on an enormous ocean. There might be treasure (or, for us, convenience and efficiency). Still, there’ll also be icebergs, storms, and maybe a few irate sea monsters (think privacy violations and ethical dilemmas) on the journey.

We can’t just tell our AI, “Be good!” It’s not about keeping it on a strict, regulatory leash but teaching it to behave itself—infusing values, ethics, and a good grasp of the law into its code.

To get there, organisations need a blueprint for leveraging AI (law)fully. That’s where the Michalsons Trustworthy AI comes in. In this age of numbers, data, and rather smart machines, our Trustworthy AI programme helps you shape a future where AI isn’t just a smart assistant but also a champion of lawfulness.

About the author: Nathan-Ross focuses mainly on AI law from a corporate and contract perspective. His interests extend to: robotic process automation (RPA), robotics, drones IoT, data science, biometrics cloud computing, data privacy, cybersecurity fintech, blockchain technology, nanotechnology, neurotechnology digital precision medicine & space law

AI’s a powerful tool, and in the hands of organisations and governments, it’s doing some truly heavy-duty work, like sussing out big data, foretelling trends, and making operations a breeze.

But here’s the tricky bit: It has to do so lawfully. We can't let AI get up to mischief just because it thinks it's onto something clever.

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JOIN THE AI REVOLUTION & SHAPE YOUR FUTURE WITH MANCOSA

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CUSTOM APP DEVELOPMENT

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Find us online:

50 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

VENDOR NEWS

UNLOCK THE POWER OF DATA: YOUR PATH TO AI EXCELLENCE

/ By Pieter Human, Managing Director: Vito Solutions /

In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, one thing remains constant: data is the lifeblood of AI solutions.

It's the fundamental base upon which the future of your business rests. It nourishes machine learning algorithms, fuels intelligent decision-making, and powers innovations in countless domains. At Vito Solutions, we understand the paramount importance of data and we are inspired to give the world insight into this healthy symbiotic relationship between Data and AI.

C

omprehension of the importance of data and addressing challenges related to data quality, privacy, diversity, and scalability is essential for ensuring that AI not only functions effectively but also ethically. As the AI landscape continues to evolve, the role of data in its success will remain central, providing the power to drive the next wave of intelligent advancements.

The Data-Driven Revolution

Data isn't just a buzzword – it's the driving force behind cutting-edge AI applications. Consider this: by 2025, the global datasphere is predicted to swell to a staggering 175 zettabytes. The question is not if you should harness the power of data but how to do it effectively.

As data is the new currency, the rapid digitalization of our world has led to an explosion of data from various sources, generating vast volumes of valuable information every second. Usage of this data, when harnessed effectively, can open up endless possibilities for AI applications across numerous domains to tackle complex problems, deliver personalized experiences, and revolutionize industries. However, the true potential of AI can only be realized if available data is utilized by organizations and individuals and best practices in data ...continues on page 52

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VENDOR NEWS ...continued from page 51

collection, quality assurance, storage, and model development is applied. It is imperative to balance the pursuit of AI advancements with ethical considerations, respecting user privacy and data security to propel AI solutions to new heights, improving our world and shaping the future.

Why is Data the Cornerstone of AI Solutions?

1. Data Fuels AI: AI algorithms depend on extensive and diverse datasets for training. The quality and quantity of data directly influence the accuracy and performance of AI models.

2. Personalized User Experiences: Data allows AI systems to analyze user behaviour, preferences, and feedback to provide highly personalized experiences, increasing customer satisfaction and engagement.

3. Predictive Analytics: With sufficient historical data, AI can forecast trends, enabling businesses to make data-driven decisions and optimize operations.

4. Reducing Costs: AI can streamline processes, enhance efficiency, and reduce operational costs through automation and optimization.

Let's look at real-world examples of how the marriage between Data and AI Solutions can revolutionize different industries like Healthcare, Finance and Retail.

Healthcare:

Data-driven AI is saving lives by diagnosing diseases early, predicting outbreaks, and optimizing treatment plans. AI-driven analysis of medical images and patient records allows for the early detection of diseases like cancer. For instance, a deep learning algorithm can analyze mammograms and identify anomalies, potentially diagnosing breast cancer at a much earlier, more treatable stage.

By analyzing vast datasets of health records, AI can identify patterns and anomalies in disease spread. This enables health authorities to predict outbreaks of infectious diseases such as flu or COVID-19 and allocate resources accordingly.

AI leverages patient data to recommend personalized treatment plans. For instance, an AI system can analyze a patient's genetic makeup and medical history to determine the most effective cancer treatment, minimizing side effects and increasing survival rates.

Finance:

Fraud detection and prevention, powered by AI, have saved financial institutions billions of dollars in losses. AI algorithms analyze transactions in real-time to detect suspicious activities and fraudulent transactions. These systems are highly effective in preventing credit card fraud and identity theft, saving financial institutions and customers billions annually.

Algorithmic Trading can optimize investment portfolios with AI models predicting market trends and executing trades within fractions of a second. Hedge funds and investment banks also employ AI for high-frequency trading, capitalizing on market fluctuations.

Even in Credit Scoring and Risk Assessment, it is vital to have AI assistance as it assesses an individual's creditworthiness by analyzing their financial history, behavior, and other relevant data.

This enables lenders to make more accurate lending decisions and reduces the risk of non-performing loans.

Retail:

Personalized product recommendations, based on customer purchase history and behavior, boost online sales and customer retention. AI-powered recommendation engines analyze customer behavior, such as browsing history and purchase patterns, to suggest products tailored to individual preferences.

52 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

Inventory Management is made much easier and more effective with AI models predicting demand and helping retailers optimize their inventory. By analyzing historical sales data, weather forecasts, and economic trends, retailers can reduce overstock and understock situations, saving both money and customer satisfaction.

Even with Pricing Strategies, retailers utilize AI to dynamically adjust prices based on real-time factors like demand, competitor pricing, and inventory levels. This dynamic pricing strategy maximizes revenue while staying competitive in the market.

These examples underscore how AI solutions in healthcare, finance and retail are heavily reliant on quality data. Without robust and well-managed data, the accuracy and effectiveness of AI in these sectors would be greatly compromised. Harnessing the power of data and AI not only drives innovation but also enhances customer experiences, saves lives, and boosts financial performance.

The Vito Solutions Difference

Vito Solutions specialize in tailoring Data and AI consulting services to our client’s unique needs. Our team offers expert knowledge to leverage the power of data and artificial intelligence to gain a competitive edge. We help organizations unlock the potential of their data and combine it with tailored AI Solutions. As the importance of data-driven decision-making and AI adoption continues to grow across industries, these services provide valuable insights, strategies, and implementation support. By partnering with us as experienced data and AI consultants, organizations can navigate the complex landscape of data and AI, driving innovation and making more informed decisions in an ever-evolving technological landscape.

What services do we offer?

1. Data Strategy: Develop a comprehensive data strategy to ensure you're collecting, storing, and utilizing data effectively.

2. Data Governance: Establish data governance frameworks that guarantee data quality, security, and compliance with industry regulations.

3. AI Model Development: Create custom AI models that align with your business objectives, providing actionable insights and predictions.

4. AI Implementation: Seamlessly integrate AI solutions into your existing systems, ensuring a smooth transition.

5. Continuous Optimization: Regularly monitor and optimize your AI systems to maintain peak performance and accuracy.

Partner with us for a Data-Driven Future. In the competitive world of AI, the difference between success and stagnation lies in your data strategy. Trust Vito Solutions to lead you on the journey towards AI excellence.

Contact us today at info@vitosolutions.co.za to embark on the data-driven revolution that will shape the future of your business. Let's make data your most valuable asset.

Vito Solutions – Your Bridge to AI Excellence. www.vitosolutions.co.za

VENDOR NEWS

HARNESSING THE INNOVATION AND POWER OF IOT AND AI / By Quentin Daffarn Pr. Eng. (Elec), CEO and Managing Director of UC-Wireless /

Manufacturers, Distributors & Vendor Representatives of WWW IoT, Instant Vitals AI and Linkyfi Solutions

I

n the ever-evolving landscape of the Internet of Things (IoT), standing out has become a testament to innovation. UCWireless, in collaboration with its global partners, launched the WWW Solution — an all-encompassing IoT Ecosystem that is redefining the industry standards. The groundbreaking ability to deliver a universal, multi-application accelerated route to market for telco operators and enterprises in the many industries the solution serves.

At its core, the WWW Solution is a fully-fledged Unprecedented Ecosystem interconnected network which champions its LoRaWAN integration and includes our many esteemed manufacturers including Tektelic, Actility, Abeeway, NetVox, Lansitec, Milesight, and many more.

These collaborations guarantee compatibility with the universally adaptable innovative WWW UC-Wireless solution, regardless of protocol, transport network or third-party integration required. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is now a focal point globally. AI requires data to deliver value and our WWW solution does just that in every industry. WWW will deliver AI as a value-add but can already integrate AI engines to optimise any business and industry.

WWW goes Beyond Standard Monitoring, tracking people, assets, or monitoring parameters across the spectrum with a groundbreaking depth of surveillance. Providing complete data presentation including charts, graphs, widgets etc. and a multi-tenant, multi-site, multilevel solution, the presentation, representation, exception and alarm monitoring, alerting and actionable analytics provides a complete end-to-end solution to all industries in a modular approach that compliments and extends existing solutions.

Why Does this Matter?

The innovation benefits of the WWW Solution stretch across all industries including healthcare, retail, industrial, mining, oil & gas, facilities management, utilities and agricultural. The potential applications and uses are boundless.

Following are some key industries and applications where the UCWireless WWW IoT ecosystem with its extensive integrated sensor range delivers significant ROI globally: Manufacturing & Industrial IoT (IIoT), using Predictive Maintenance drastically reduces downtime and maintenance costs and Supply Chain and Inventory Management leads to reduced inventory costs and improved supply chain efficiency. ...continues on page 54

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VENDOR NEWS ...continued from page 53

Agriculture and Precision Farming, using sensors to monitor soil moisture levels, crop health, and weather conditions optimizes irrigation, planting, and harvesting, while Livestock Monitoring quickly detects illnesses and reduces livestock mortality and ensures animals are grazing effectively while lowering labour costs, preventing theft and optimises profits.

Healthcare & Wellness IoT and LoRaWAN have introduced transformative solutions and ROI to the industry. Remote Monitoring leads to better health outcomes and reduced hospitalization costs for both providers and patients and reduces hospital readmissions.

Early detection of potential medical issues and better allocation of medical resources delivers both significant costs saving while improving quality of life, performance, and productivity of employees.

Asset Tracking and Medication Management IoT sensors monitor and track the location and status of medical equipment, which leads to increased equipment utilization, reduced theft or misplacement, decreased downtime, and improved patient care.

Cold Chain Monitoring has widespread valuable applications. In Pharmaceuticals and the Supply Chain of Fresh and Frozen Foods IoT reduces wastage of medications and vaccines, ensures efficacy of administered drugs, and potential avoidance of liability issues.

In food supply, waste and expiry cost the industry millions which is greatly reduced through IoT. Smart Beds and Patient Monitoring in Hospitals detects occupancy and monitor patients' movements, preventing falls and alerting staff to potential issues, reducing the need for frequent manual checks, and reducing liability costs.

Chronic Disease Management and Emergency Response using wearable devices detects falls or other emergencies, monitors chronic disease indicators and provides real-time feedback to patients, healthcare providers. Reduction of complications and hospitalizations, improved quality of life for patients, and decrease long-term healthcare costs are the result.

While these benefits and substantial ROI, it is essential to approach IoT in healthcare with a focus on security and privacy, given the sensitive nature of medical data. Proper implementation and management harness these benefits while protecting patients' rights and information.

Furthermore UC-Wireless’ advanced Instant Vitals Wellness Screening Solution developed in the last 3 years using its AI, offers non-invasive vital sign measurements using standard video cameras on smartphones, tablets, or computers.

Wellness App Integration and Corporate Wellness Programs integrate Instant Vitals for users to monitor their vitals and manage employee wellness. Instant Vitals complements smart IoT devices, creating comprehensive health monitoring solutions and offering users a seamless health and wellness solution within their living spaces. Instant Vitals also offers an alternative that does not require wearing a device. It serves as a complementary solution or a backup.

UC-Wireless is the OEM representative of Linkyfi in MEA. With Linkyfi’s machine learning Location Based Engine on Wi-Fi, a host of features that can be employed in Retail, Transport, and various facilities, utilizing the power of geofencing, people counting, alerting, and zone movement analytics are possible. These capabilities have the potential to generate substantial ROI in several industries.

For Safety and Crowd Management, geofencing helps manage crowd density in specific zones. Alerts are sent out when a zone is nearing its capacity, aiding in crowd control, and ensuring safety regulations are met.

By leveraging Linkyfi's machine learning Location Based Engine on Wi-Fi, businesses cannot only achieve direct financial ROI through improved sales, reduced operational costs, and optimized resource allocation but also indirect ROI through enhanced user experience, improved safety, and informed decision-making.

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Conclusion It is crucial to note that the ROI in all these applications, not only in terms of financial gains but also in terms of efficiency, sustainability, safety, and improved customer experiences. As the IoT ecosystem evolves, the ROI across many industries will also likely shift based on technological advancements, market needs, and innovative applications.

The WWW IOT solution opens the door where we will soon leverage AI on the data gained through IOT. LoRaWAN's distinct advantage in many of these applications is its ability to cover large areas (making it ideal for remote or widely dispersed infrastructure) while consuming minimal power, which is crucial for battery-operated sensors that need to operate for years without maintenance.

For more information on Supply Chain Optimization, Smart Shelves and Customer Behaviour Analysis, Waste and Water Management, Gas Leak Detection, Traffic Management and Public Safety and Surveillance and more.

See https://www.uc-wireless.com The WWW Solution from UC-Wireless is not just a product; it is a vision for the future of IoT, backed by the trailblazing innovation in LoRaWAN and beyond; it is not just about connectivity reshaping industries.

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Our key driving force is the ability to steer value into the channel by enabling our partners to stay in touch with the latest and greatest technology - plus the ability to provide technical support for dis Count on our Pre-Sales Engineers to guide you from planning to with our clients we provide tailor-made IT architecture to fit the specific requirements of the unique client and project-based circumstances. www.pinnacle.co.za Pinnes is proud to present Nvidia (NASDAQ: NVDA). layer, AI, AI Training,

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55

VENDOR NEWS

YOU CAN’T BUY AI

Machine Learning is a Process and not a Product Follow this order

There is a great deal of anxiety around the introduction of ML and AI technology across the world. Understandably so!

Let’s take a moment to turn back time and think of the age of the printing press, the steam engine, electricity, the transportation age, the first computers. Those were all major shifts in how we interacted with the world and each other. We have now reached the age of data and cloud infrastructure.

Each age brought about masses of innovations that fundamentally changed how we operate. Following COVID, the way we work is like none we have known before. On top of all this, we also live in the age of connection.

Digital Transformation is not optional anymore. Organisations worldwide are looking at ways to foster innovation, generate new revenue streams, and adapt quickly to market changes and customer needs. Digital transformation is the enabler to these outcomes.

This brings us to our headline: Machine Learning is a Process, not a product.

Here are our thoughts: You can't buy machine learning Machine learning is not a product that you can buy off the shelf. It is a process that requires careful planning, execution, and maintenance.

Data is key Machine learning models need data to learn. You cannot simply dive headlong into the deployment of AI technologies. You need to have a deep understanding and developed process for data collection. This data is used to gain insights into how your business operates.

You build a machine learning practice and process This is not a one size fits all kind of thing. You need to build out what it is that you are trying to achieve on your data. Your data is unique to you.

Models need to be updated regularly Data changes over time, so your models need to be updated to reflect those changes.

You need to have domain experts Machine learning is a complex field, so you need to have experts who understand the domain and can help you build and maintain your models.

Models can drift Over time, models can start to make inaccurate predictions. You need to monitor your models and take steps to address any drift that occurs.

By following these tips, you can build a successful machine learning practice that will help you improve your productivity and achieve your business goals.

56 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

To be successful in adopting, adapting and benefiting from machine learning, you have to have a data engineering aspect.

At Opennetworks we have a wealth of experience in building, maintaining and evolving data landscapes in cloud and across business needs. Our data engineers are on hand to help architect and achieve your next big data objective.

Let us help you sort out your data so that you can plug in the ML models and gain the AI insights you are looking for.

Hospitals around the world face huge internal logistic problems as a result of the labor intensive environment, many small packages need to be delivered on time from various depots to wards where patients need their medication, medical supplies, linen, and meals.

We piloted our delivery module on a custom configured robot to deliver scheduled drugs in a live hospital environment and found the following improvements:

results over a 4 week period in a live hospital environment

find out more @ ctrlrobotics.com/better-hospitals ctrl easily integrates to multiple robots for dynamic automation needs

58 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

VC NEWS

CONVERGENCE PARTNERS INVESTMENTS REBRANDS TO SOLCON CAPITAL / Read original article here /

Convergence Partners Investments, the deeptech investor started by Andile Ngcaba in 2003, has rebranded to Solcon Capital.

I

n a statement, the firm says the move comes as the company launches a big push to empower global deep-tech growth through platform economics.

Convergence Partners Investments (now Solcon Capital) was the first vehicle structured as a permanent capital vehicle in the Convergence Partners stable.

Ngcaba remains firmly invested in and continues to drive the growth at Convergence Partners, which will continue to focus on private equity through its current and future digital infrastructure funds.

Under this new brand, Solcon will focus on international deep-tech investments in generative AI and large language models (LLM), synthetic data and big data, cyber security and quantum computing across South Africa, India and Southeast Asia, leveraging scale through platform economics, says the firm.

It adds that Solcon is already demonstrating its leadership in innovation and disruptive solutions. It is working on its flagship AI-based investment management platform, Solcon 360, to be unveiled at its 20th anniversary celebrations in October.

According to the company, this platform will enable investment firms to manage pipelines, virtual data room and operations of their portfolios more effectively.

With its own large-scale LLM, the firm notes Solcon 360 will allow investment companies to capitalise on generative AI and build custom models tailored to their investment needs.

As part of the rebranding, Solcon also announced the appointment of Pramod Venkatesh as CEO, starting 1 August.

He will spearhead the global growth of the company. The firm says Venkatesh has extensive experience in managing and building deep-tech companies from the ground up, garnered from Silicon Valley.

Prior to joining Solcon Capital, Venkatesh was group CTO of inq. where he was responsible for building products and solutions around AI, SDN and edge computing.

Ngcaba, chairman of Solcon Capital, comments: “Solcon Capital has a 20-year history of innovation and disruption through investments in companies that have built undersea cables, long-haul fibre, big data, etc. In this new chapter, Solcon Capital will be known as one of the leading global deep-tech investment companies.

“We are excited to bring onboard Pramod Venkatesh, with extensive experience in Silicon Valley and expertise in building deeptech companies. Pramod will execute Solcon Capital’s 2035 strategy. With Pramod at the helm, we will continue to disrupt deep-tech and are excited to show what the future holds.”

Brandon Doyle, director of Solcon Capital, says: “The exponential growth of Convergence Partners in the past 20 years and our geographic expansion to new Asian markets makes this strategic move of rebranding our permanent capital vehicle to Solcon Capital timely and ideal given the strides we have made.

"We welcome Pramod to drive our global deep-tech strategy and ensure we make use of cutting-edge technologies to assist us with portfolio management.”

Says Venkatesh: “The technology sector has undergone some incredibly transformative changes, with significant innovations in AI, LLM and space tech, which have already begun to dramatically reshape the global business landscape.

Andile Ngcaba, chairman of Solcon Capital

“ It adds that Solcon is already demonstrating its leadership in innovation and disruptive solutions. It is working on its flagship AI-based investment management platform, Solcon 360, to be unveiled at its 20th anniversary celebrations in October.

”

“As a deep tech investor, along with our rich two-decade-long history in Africa, Solcon Capital has been a fundamental driving force behind the radical transformation of the continent’s tech ecosystem.

“As we step confidently into the future, we remain committed to leveraging our global portfolio to extend our African footprint, while concurrently investing in African deeptech companies in their global expansion efforts. I am profoundly grateful to the shareholders, directors and the chairman for entrusting me with the responsibility of spearheading Solcon Capital on its journey towards actualising the 2035 deep-tech strategy.”

Solcon Capital will celebrate its 20th anniversary on 25 October, through a conference and hackathon on Web 3.0 and generative AI in Sandton, South Africa.

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59

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60 SYNAPSE | SHOW EDITION 2023

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BRICS NEWS

BRICS ANNOUNCES FORMATION OF AI STUDY GROUP / Read original article here /

This initiative aims to closely monitor the progress and development of AI technology and catalyse AI innovation within the BRICS member countries.

A

t the BRICS summit in Johannesburg, which brought together major emerging economies (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa), Chinese President Xi Jinping announced intentions to form an ‘AI study group’ within the BRICS member countries. This initiative aims to closely monitor the progress and development of AI technology. One of the roles of the AI study group will be catalysing innovation in AI within the BRICS member countries. Further details about the project are anticipated to be revealed in the near future.

Chinese President stressed the importance of creating a robust AI governance framework and standardisation to enhance the security, reliability, control, and equity of AI technologies.

Remarks by H.E. Xi Jinping, President of the People’s Republic of China, at the 15th BRICS Summit:

“

We need to enable the Study Group to play its full role, further expand cooperation on AI, and step up information exchange and technological cooperation.

We need to jointly fend off risks, and develop AI governance frameworks and standards with broad-based consensus, so as to make AI technologies more secure, reliable, controllable and equitable.

”

Other digital topics on the agenda: Remote Sensing Satellite cooperation: Plans include exploring a BRICS Global Remote Sensing Satellite Data and Application Cooperation Platform for agriculture, ecological conservation, and disaster reduction.

Research and technology incubator: China announced plans to create ‘a research and technology incubator of a new era for BRICS countries,’ in a move to support achievements in the area of scientific and technological innovations.

Sustainable development: Parties are committed to a BRICS Framework on Industrial Cooperation for Sustainable Development aligned with the UN 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.

Digital education cooperation: A proposal to expand education cooperation, including vocational and digital education mechanisms, was presented.

Digital economy at focus: President Xi Jinping advocated for practical cooperation in the digital economy, green development, and supply chains during a BRICS summit plenary session.

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61

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2nd QUARTER 2023 | ISSUE 20

SYNAPSE Africa’s 4IR Trade & Innovation Magazine

ENTERING THE NEW ERA OF AI REGULATION AFRICA MUST REGULATE AI to

reap its full benefits

GENERATIVE AI & the POPI Act

RETHINKING DATA GOVERNANCE AI DIGITAL COURSE targets commonwealth public leaders

SOUTH AFRICA LAUNCHES AI INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION SAAIA TO FOCUS ON RESPONSIBLE AI

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63

SYNAPSE

2nd QUARTER 2023 | ISSUE 20

SYNAPSE Africa’s 4IR Trade & Innovation Magazine

ENTERING THE NEW ERA OF AI REGULATION

Africa’s 4IR Trade & Innovation Magazine

AFRICA MUST

REGULATE AI to reap its full benefits

REACH AFRICA'S LARGEST ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE & 4IR COMMUNITY WITH SYNAPSE MAGAZINE

GENERATIVE AI & the POPI Act

RETHINKING DATA GOVERNANCE AI DIGITAL COURSE targets commonwealth public leaders

SOUTH AFRICA LAUNCHES AI INDUSTRY ASSOCIATION

Published Quarterly

SAAIA TO FOCUS ON RESPONSIBLE AI

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READERSHIP / SOCIAL MEDIA REACH Synapse Magazine is Africa’s first and only business quarterly publication covering developments across the continent in Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science, Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) smart technologies.

Synapse offers industry executives, practitioners, investors and researchers relevant news, in-depth analysis, and thought leadership articles on trends around 4IR innovation and digital transformation in industries that include banking, retail, manufacturing, healthcare, mining, agriculture, education, and government, among others.

Over the years the magazine has established a significant following across Africa as well as globally, with readers from as far afield as the North America, South America, Europe and Asia. This makes Synapse a great marketing platform for startups and established tech companies to reach a broader community of buyers, investors and partners.

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With its insights, interviews and case studies, the magazine aims to be a voice for African 4IR practitioners, researchers, innovators, thought leaders, and the wider African AI community.

Since its launch in 2018, Synapse has amassed a combined readership of 31,300 across the Issuu platform (on which it is published), the AI Media Group’s email database, the AI Expo Africa Community Group on LinkedIn and the AI Media Group’s social media channels where the magazine is distributed. It also links to AI TV, Africa’s only dedicated YouTube streaming channel focused on 4IR business users and trade.

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