BOLSTERI NG AI FOR GOOD INNOVATIO N ACROSS AFRICA

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming industries. Innovators across Africa are developing homegrown solutions to challenges in healthcare, agriculture, education, and governance. From Nairobi’s burgeoning tech hubs to Lagos’ vibrant startup scene, African nations are not only adopting AI but also shaping it to suit local needs. Yet, this rapid growth requires continued investment to ensure equity and access to the infrastructure and capacity that support continued AI innovation.

At AI for Good, we are committed to nurturing innovation across the continent. Through challenges and support for AI startups, granting cloud computing credits, supporting scholars, and working with local partners, there are numerous success stories coming out of Africa when it comes to AI for social good projects.

As the leading United Nations (UN) platform for AI that supports the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), we are organized by the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and supported by 47 UN Agencies.

Our AI for Good Innovation Factory is the UN-led pitching platform to help startups grow and scale their innovative AI-powered and SDG-driven solutions by connecting them to potential business partners, investors, governments, big IT companies, and more. For those who are seeking groundbreaking solutions from startups, it is an excellent platform to explore opportunities to meet promising ventures and collaborators. Several startups have been able to scale their solutions after winning our prize.

In 2022, OKO Finance, an innovative crop insurance company, won our Innovation Factory prize for work in Mali and Uganda. Since then, it has continued to grow and is now operating in seven countries. OKO has an impressive double impact: On the one hand, they contribute to financial inclusion, bringing insurance, access, and credit to people previously deprived of these basic services. On the other hand, they contribute to climate resilience by providing for better prediction. Watch our session “Meet the Africa-based AI Start-up Innovations” on YouTube to learn more.

This year, we are hosting another Innovation Factory for Africa organized in partnership with AI Media and open to all African-based startups.

Co-hosted by AI Media, a regional media and advisory consultancy focused on the emerging AI opportunity in Africa, this global startup pitching session aims to identify the most promising African startups using AI to solve sustainable development challenges. If you are an African startup with novel AI solutions to shape a sustainable future, don’t hesitate to apply here by 20 September.

In addition to supporting startups, AI for Good has launched a new program to recognize scholars and projects making an innovative impact on SDGs.

In the recent report, Innovate for Impact, students working on issues of sustainable development were encouraged to apply with their projects to win awards and recognition. Some of the chosen projects from Africa include: “Using AI to Reduce the 6G Standards Barrier for African Contributors.” This project from Nigeria’s Federal University of Technology, Minna, is helping to bridge the digital divide with AI solutions.

In Tanzania, the government is developing an AI-powered system for enhancing transparency and accountability in public procurement and project monitoring. The Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau developed Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Large Language Models (LLMs) to analyze procurement projects with open-source data, in an attempt to limit corrupt and unethical practices.

In Libya, Leapchat AI developed an AI chatbot to support families of missing persons. It was a collaboration between an AI chatbot platform operating a corporate social responsibility (CSR) program and Libyan non-governmental organizations (NGOs) to provide support to individuals affected by the Derna flooding crisis.

The report contains over fifty innovative use cases where AI is being used to improve lives.

Lastly, there are some great outcomes when AI for Good collaborates with local partners. For several years, AI for Good has been working with Zindi to find the best data-driven solutions through data science competitions.

Zindi hosts the largest community of African data scientists, working to solve the world’s most pressing challenges using machine learning and AI. The International Telecommunication Union (ITU) partnered with Zindi to develop solutions to important global challenges through a series of data science competitions hosted by AI for Good. In these challenges, hundreds of data scientists from around the world are building complex machine learning models to help map potential climate disasters, predict and reduce energy consumption, and address the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in innovative ways.

Here are some of the ways that these projects are making a difference:

Disaster prevention and supporting agriculture around the world

Landslide susceptibility mapping can help local authorities plan and implement sustainable development measures, reduce the risk of landslides, and ensure the safety of communities living in high-risk areas. In this challenge, creating a hazard map with AI allows governments to keep their citizens safe from disasters. See more here.

Accurate and up-to-date crop maps are essential for agriculture as well as other relevant fields, such as natural resources, environment, health, and sustainability.

Cropland extent maps are the basic products that allow for practical agricultural applications. Through this competition, Zindi and ITU are enabling a more precise and comprehensive understanding of agricultural landscapes worldwide.

Predicting air pollution for public health

Zindi and ITU have created a data science competition to use machine learning to produce air pollution susceptibility maps in Milan, Italy, which will support local government decision-making to improve the public health and resilience of the city. Zindi believes that through studying our available data and creating predictive models, the world can become a better and safer place for all.

Making networks more efficient to reduce energy consumption

In a world where energy use is responsible for three-quarters of fossil fuel consumption, there is a desperate need for ways to reduce this. Using AI, Zindi’s community of data scientists are finding new ways to reduce energy consumption in 5G networks.

Managing faults in complex telecom networks is an enormous and demanding task. Being able to predict faults in Radio Access Networks (RANs) will lead to reduced costs and improvements in network uptime. ITU and Zindi believe that a platform like Zindi benefits both the organizations providing the data and the participants of the challenge, who develop real skills by working on real problems.

Through these ITU AI/ML Challenges, select winners from the 2023 problem statements were invited to participate in the 2024 AI for Good Global Summit. These individuals had the opportunity to present their solutions during the summit’s workshops, sharing their insights and experiences with a global audience.

“The ITU AI/ML Challenges provide an invaluable platform for ML scientists to hone their skills and address real-world problems at the cutting edge of technological advancement. My participation exposed me to a broad range of international challenges, fostering a deeper understanding and expertise on the critical applications of AI/ML in various fields, including 5G/ Networking. The series have made me more fit for both the industry and academia than ever before. Therefore, if anything, the ITU AI/ML challenges should keep expanding and collect more problem statements to expose the community further,” said Ndabuye Gideon, one of the participants.

Her testimonial underscores the significant role the AI for Good ITU AI/ML Challenges play in advancing participants’ careers and contributions to the field of AI and Machine Learning.

In addition to our work with Zindi, AI for Good is partnering with Seeed Studio for local programs at the Malawi University of Science and Technology (MUST) to support AI innovators. A “Summer School Workshop on TinyML” brought around 50 students to help develop capacity that could enable local solutions in low-cost settings throughout the month of August.

TinyML is a technology that allows machine learning models to run on lowcost, low-power microcontrollers. TinyML’s extremely low bandwidth and energy requirements make it uniquely suited for regions with limited access to reliable energy and computing infrastructure.

This technology plays a significant role in advancing the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and enabling new applications in fields such as healthcare, agriculture, environmental monitoring, and conservation.

TinyML has attracted significant interest from researchers, developers, and industries for its potential to enable innovative applications in healthcare, agriculture, transportation, conservation, smart homes, and more. Though currently restricted in reach, TinyML intersects topics across computer science and engineering curricula, making it an impactful educational tool.

This hands-on workshop focused on TinyML applications relevant to Malawian students and researchers, providing training on commercially available hardware optimized for embedded ML deployment. By making TinyML more accessible, this workshop empowers researchers to develop localized solutions that benefit their communities.

It is estimated that digital technologies directly benefit 70 percent of SDG targets, and these collaborations are showing how advanced technologies like AI can come from anywhere in the world to solve these global challenges.

Through these ongoing collaborations, AI for Good is helping to support everyone who wants to be a part of the solution. To learn more about AI for Good and to get involved in ongoing projects in Africa, join us!