Bulls n Bears Entrepreneurship Zone :: Sebuh Haileleul: How artificial intelligence is spearheading unprecedented change in Africa

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Digital transformation is the adoption of advanced technologies and the
rise of innovations as companies and individuals reorganise to be mobile-
and digital-first, multimodal, and intelligence-driven. It is a catalyst for
engendering agility, and has become crucial for organisations to stay
competitive, achieve successes, and even survive.

A key enabler of this is artificial intelligence (AI), which has been
dubbed a ‘great transformer’. AI refers to systems that change their
behaviours without being explicitly programmed to do so – simply put, they
learn. These systems use things like aggregated data, usage analysis,
pattern recognition, and predictive analytics to deliver intuitive insights
or make choices, improving efficiency and even shifting business models
across all sectors. It is also expected to ultimately boost overall economic
growth, and create jobs not yet imagined.


Transforming organisations and industry


AI, machine learning, and automation are expected to provide organisations
with new means to overcome typical challenges like time constraints, limited
skilled resources, and bottlenecks to overall business processes. It can
also be used to support security and safety systems, to spot anomalies and
patterns.

AI platforms will support critical systems to run securely and reliably and
extract the right information. That’s why we want to see AI embraced in
Africa, bringing AI to every application, business process, and every
employee. AI technology from
<https://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/tag/microsoft/> Microsoft, for example,
is enabling accident prevention through computer vision – scanning video
inputs for potential risk, and using this information to improve
organisational safety going forward. Microsoft Dynamics 365 AI gives
employees the ability to discover predictive insights and, from these, take
informed action. Microsoft’s Cortana Skills Kit for Enterprise serves as a
digital assistant, keeping users informed and productive, assisting them to
complete company-specific tasks – and supporting the shift towards adoption
of voice and natural language for interfacing with technology.


Empowering societies


We believe that AI has the potential to empower people – making the world a
better place and Africa will not be left behind. Microsoft has invested
US$115m over five years into initiatives that provide funding, technology
and expertise to nonprofits and organisations so that they can tackle
pressing issues within their own societies. Examples of this exists in
Little Cab – a Kenyan cab hailing service. In 2017, Little Cab partnered
with Microsoft to launch a driver login verification feature on its app,
using facial recognition technology provided by Microsoft Cognitive API and
selfies. A smart African-grown system like this ensures that riders have
peace of mind while using the service, as it eliminates the opportunity for
non-registered drivers to pose as Little Cab drivers.

Within the financial services industry, AI is the underlying tech that
helped Finserve launched mKey – Africa’s first keyboard app that converges
social, and financial services into an integrated lifestyle. Operating on
Microsoft Azure technology, it also rewards users the more they transact,
blending the best of social conversations with the full breadth of financial
services, capturing that entire world on your keyboard, giving users the
opportunity to make more possible.


Transforming economies


It is said that by 2050, the need to produce food globally will become
crucial. With water levels receding and arable land already limited, the
agriculture industry has been placed in the spotlight for needing to adopt
innovative technologies crucial to long-term survival. At a time where
resources and crops need to be tracked – AI enabled data-driven insights are
able to boost agricultural productivity through increasing yields and
reducing losses. Through Farmbeats, seamless data collection is can be
collected from various sensors, drones and cameras. The solution also
accounts for weather-related power and Internet outages.

Clearly the potential inherent in AI is huge, but the emergence of AI in
combination with automation has also prompted fears – specifically about its
long-term impact on employment. Opponents caution that many people may stand
to lose their jobs to machines fitted with AI capabilities, particularly at
the lower-skill end of the spectrum.

Proponents, on the other hand, argue that new or refreshed industries will
benefit from AI, which according to some research will actually create more
jobs than it makes obsolete. Additionally, Gartner reports that AI
augmentation will generate about $2.9tn in business value and recover about
$6.2bn in worker productivity by 2021. Others argue that AI could contribute
up to $15.7tn to the global economy in 2030, more than the current output of
China and India combined.

At Microsoft, we do not foresee AI fully replacing humans in the workforce,
but rather functioning as a tool that augments human abilities, freeing up
people from routine, repetitive tasks, to focus instead on higher reasoning,
creativity, and relationship-building – skills that remain uniquely human.

Microsoft’s vision for AI is one of empowerment – technology providing
organisations and individuals with the tools required to innovate and
perform to the best of their ability. Our approach of making AI accessible
through infusing it in everything we do will only add and streamline the
greater agenda of governments, forging the way forward to an all encompassed
digital society.

Sebuh Haileleul is the general manager for Microsoft East Africa.—
Howwemadeitinafrica 



Sebuh Haileleul

 

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