6 minute read
Nexus Hub Inc. and the Budding Tech Ecosystem
Guyana’s Eldon Marks is driving a community of Conversational AI specialists.
Far from the North American centres of technological innovation, in a small country on the South American continent, a small cadre of software engineers is hunched over their devices, tapping away.
These are the certified Conversational AI (Artificial Intelligence) coders of V75 Inc. in Guyana, and in all likelihood, they’re developing the kinds of programmes that allow you to ask questions aloud of your virtual personal assistants: Where’s the closest gas station, Siri? What’s my chequing account balance, Alexa? Google, what’s the weather going to be like in Georgetown tomorrow?
Over the past few years, Guyana has been slowly developing a nascent reputation as a place to find Conversational AI specialists. That’s due, in no small part, to V75’s founder and CEO, Eldon Marks – a man occasionally referred to in his non-hierarchical business structure as the “Don” but never the “Boss”.
Marks is a 37-year-old computer scientist who specialized in AI while doing his Master’s at Howard University and has now pulled together a team of specialists who’ve worked on AI projects for big clients such as Barclays, Wells Fargo and PAS Cargo Services.
Somewhat against the tide (and the financial temptation of larger North American pay cheques), Marks returned to Guyana to work and impart his knowledge. He taught at the University of Guyana and, with some of his students, assembled a team of developers who found a few international clients to keep them in business at home. “I never had in my mind that I wanted to venture off to greener pastures,” says Marks. “I was more inclined to be part of something that was developing.”
The market for AI in Guyana, and the rest of the Caribbean, still hasn’t taken off: The region’s banks have so far preferred the lowest rung of automated responses known as chatbots, and other potential users like telecom companies have found the technology too expensive. But V75 has formed an important partnership with a Conversational AI company called Clinc out of Michigan.
In fact, Clinc was so impressed while training a few Guyanese developers that the company ditched its other development teams and let them drive a project to create an in-car experience for automaker Ford. (It enabled drivers to use voice commands to set the cruise control or ask what a light on the dashboard meant.)
By creating a space that retains and engages the talent, we were able to train 25 bright young minds as Certified Conversational AI specialists. They’re all still in Guyana. - Eldon Marks
“Clinc dropped partners, even Americans who had exposure,” says computer scientist Asa Brouet, who was at the time, one of the developers on the Ford project. “Because they couldn’t be at the same level as we were.”
Since partnering with Clinc, V75 has developed Conversational AI experiences used by over 25 million people, worldwide. And 25 young Guyanese have been trained in Conversational AI. They are the backbone of a fledgling tech ecosystem that hopes to find a regional market while working in a global one.
Social impact
Eldon Marks considers himself a social entrepreneur, who prefers sharing information rather than keeping it confined in little silos. Around 2015, he and fellow Guyanese computer scientists like Asa Brouet (now V75 Inc’s Chief Technology Officer), started visiting schools on Saturday mornings to teach crash courses on app development. “The students were excited,” recalls Brouet. “It allowed us to impart knowledge to others, especially to people still deciding what they wanted to do.”
From there, in the hope of encouraging the development of a tech ecosystem in Guyana, they formed a non-profit called NeXus Hub Inc. The network fosters the type of collaboration and innovation that can lead to jobs and economic growth. It arranges funded apprenticeships for young developers and hosts an annual adapted hackathon where teams of coders collaborate instead of compete to solve social issues using technology.
The NeXus Hub Inc. website admits that Guyana’s tech industry “is not currently in a state to reliably contribute to job creation or economic growth in the country.” But with the right tech culture, perhaps… “The only reason I’m doing this is to create opportunities,” says Marks. “Guyana was chockful of untapped potential with very few outlets.”
Today, he speaks about aggressively retaining talented individuals who might become national decision makers capable of vaulting Guyana into a globally competitive future. “Globalization is upon us. But we’ve struck oil and there are fundamental systems yet to be implemented in Guyana. I don’t know if it’s the fact that the generation still in power is not yet fully aware of how the world has changed around them.”
The advantage of sharing knowledge and building a community is already becoming apparent. NeXus Hub Inc. has garnered attention among global tech entrepreneurs with social consciences and the relative cost of Guyana’s talent. “Our exposure is much better than it was five years ago,” notes Asa Brouet. “They know what we have to offer, what we stand for. We’re getting a lot more traction, even within the Caribbean.”
What is Conversational AI?
Ever asked Siri to set a timer, or told Alexa to play a song? Well then, you’re familiar with Conversational AI, or Artificial Intelligence. It’s the voice-recognition software behind the virtual assistants who live in your smartphone and other internet-connected devices.
Conversational AI is especially popular with banks and the financial technology or fintech sector, and is also being used in vehicles, shipping and other sectors. It allows you to ask your banking app how much you spent on your credit card last night or tell your vehicle to turn up the AC on a sweltering day.
Using algorithms and vast troves of data, it has the ability to learn – accurately interpreting different accents, slang, and context. It can respond to voice requests by searching troves of data and crunching numbers to give you an answer about, for example, the effect of a reduction in your mortgage interest rate.
It is also “infinitely scalable”, which means it can respond to any number of requests. So a company no longer has to hire more customer service representatives, or any at all. Asked whether AI has the potential to cause job losses, Marks responds with an industry stat: Less than 5% of jobs are fully automatable.
He says the technology is not at the level to replace humans, but to augment what we do. And just look at V75, where jobs are actually being created. “There are cases where companies are looking to shift call centre spaces from rooms full of human agents to AI agents,” admits Marks, “but they are also repurposing human operatives to other areas of the company that need human beings.”
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