5 things Africa must do to take advantage of the coming AI revolution

Africa has a huge opportunity to reposition itself as Artificial Intelligence reshapes the global economy over the next 10–15 years!

As the power of AI converges with advances in healthcare, advanced manufacturing, logistics and transportation, current industries and power structures will be turned on their heads. Regions that ready themselves for this disruption can find themselves leading the way.

Here’s a few ways the continent should be prepared for this change:

1. Invest in education and training: To ensure that Africa has the necessary skills and expertise to take advantage of AI, it will be important to invest in education and training programs that focus on AI and related technologies. This could include initiatives to train a new generation of AI professionals, as well as programs to help existing professionals and students to upskill and stay current with the latest developments in AI. Moringa School and Carnegie Mellon University Africa are doing great work in this area.
2. Promote research and development: Africa should also encourage research and development in AI, both through public investment and by fostering an environment that is conducive to innovation. This could include initiatives to support startups and entrepreneurs working in the AI space, as well as programs to promote collaboration between researchers and industry. African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) and Deep Learning Indaba, among others, shine here.
3. Foster partnerships and collaboration: Africa should seek to build partnerships and collaborations with other regions and countries that are leaders in AI, in order to access the latest technologies and expertise. This could include initiatives such as joint research projects, exchange programs, and collaborations with companies and research organizations. IBM and Google’s Africa AI residency and doing great!
4. Develop ethical guidelines and frameworks: It will be important to develop ethical guidelines and frameworks to govern the use of AI in Africa, in order to ensure that the technology is used in a responsible and transparent manner. This could include guidelines on issues such as data privacy, bias, and accountability. The African Union’s High Level Panel on Artificial Intelligence and AI4D Africa | IAPD Afrique are working in this space.
5. Invest in infrastructure: To fully leverage the benefits of AI, Africa will also need to invest in infrastructure such as data centers, computing resources, and smart devices and connected equipment. This will be necessary to enable tasks such as training machine learning models, running AI applications, and collecting data to be analyzed by AI systems.

Anything else we should be doing? Let me know in the comments.

Let’s get moving!