The following are the outputs of the captioning taken during an IGF intervention. Although it is largely accurate, in some cases it may be incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors. It is posted as an aid, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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>> ALLISON: All right the good afternoon, everyone. And welcome to the session on open AI to catalyze digital economy many Africa.
I urge the few scattered people in the room to come and join us in the front. Maybe we can make more of a conversation of this and thank you for staying for this last session on the second to last day. I know it's been very intensive. But we'd like to have this important conversation, got these great panelists with us.
So let's begin, we've also got Christelle Onana online who will do the content moderation. We've go Kojo Boake, the VP of Public Policy Africa, Middle East, and Turkey for META.
We have Dr. Tobias Teal who is the director of the GIZ for the African Union. I'm not going to do my bad German on that.
And we've got Adele Salemon from the African Union, senior policy adviser, I believe, as I remember, in the Information Society Division II, I believe. Thank you Adele also for stepping in for the African Union here.
And then of course we also have Barbara Glover online who is on the high level panel of emerging technologies and has been centrally involved with the development of AI policy on the continent and thank you, Barbara, for joining us I believe from Johannesburg.
I'm going to start by asking you all before we get into the issues of what AI can do for SMEs and the digital economy in Africa, to tell us what you understand by this rather controversial, I think it used to be kind of an accepted good.
But what do you understand by open AI before we can look at what it can do for Africa. Kojo, you want to give us a run at what?
>> KOJO BOAKE: I can try. I can try. I may attempt to reframe it slightly. First of all, I'd like to say huge thanks to the government of Norway for putting on another wonderful IGF, as well as many of the support staff from what I assume is the NOVA Spektrum team.
Allison did a wonder job of introducing the three of us, myself and my two learned colleagues. But hopefully many of you know Allison, the work of research ICT Africa the impact it's had on policy making, not only on the continent that is most close to my heart, but globally as well. So give her her applause. I hope you already read the bio.
>> ALLISON: I think this is the second panel I failed to introduce myself. I expect everybody to know me. Just getting on to these interesting topics.
>> KOJO BOAKE: I think the question was as you posed it what was the impact open AI may have on Africa.
>> ALLISON: No, I'm actually asking you a question before that, what do you understand as your role in META, how do you define and understand open AI?
>> KOJO BOAKE: I would reframe it more as open-source AI rather than open AI. My competitors at open AI would be delighted I'm going to are lib Cal about them rather than ourselves. So it's a huge opportunity. Anyone that's been in the conference over the last four days who understand there's closed models and open models and on a spectrum, some more closed than others. Meta has gone a long way since 2023 to put open source models, our Llama models in the hands of entrepreneurs, NGOs, academics, researchers, anybody who wants to use April AI, open-source AI -- you got me now, open-source AI to meet their public sector goals, all kinds of stuff.
So there was a chap here from one of our fellow tech companies, Microsoft, who put on this history of technological revolution, the cotton genie in the industrial revolution wasn't there. But a number of things were. The combustion engine, a few other things on this timeline.
I've always been struck by this in open source that we are putting in the hands of people, Llama models have been downloaded more than a billion times now. At each of those stages, the continent is closest to my heart and beyond, the region I look after, Africa and Turkiye, probably weren't at the forefront of those technical revolutions. It was man labour, technical devices in the hands of people. You and I have been working on mobile and telephone Internet for a long time. And we've always felt to be behind the curve a little bit, with all due respect.
This feels as though, despite the fact that major Big Tech companies appear to be driving it, at least on behalf of META, this feels as though we're presenting an opportunity for open-source AI to put those technical tools in the hands of those who probably most need them.
This idea of catching up through mobile telephone or catching up by putting the Internet into people's hands has worked to an extent. But because we've been behind the curve we probably haven't seen the impact we'd like to see.
I think open source presents an incredible opportunity to do that. If we get and go on to speak about policy, regulation, all that kind of stuff. Equity and safety and responsible AI and all of that kind of sufficient, all right, I think it presents a first and foremost wonderful opportunity.
>> ALLISON: Let's come back to there. Tobias, why don't you say what you think AI to mean.
>> TOBIAS TEALE: Thank you for having me. It's great to be part of this critical conversation on the benefits of open-source AI.
On your question, I would design it as an opportunity for the continent. That's what's the essence of open-source AI because we believe for it to be inclusive and open, it needs to be openly sourced and that means there needs to be open access, there needs to be open infrastructure, and there needs to be open innovation. And I think that really captures the spirit. It's of course part of the principles digital development and if we want to leverage the opportunities for the Africa continent and beyond.
>> ALLISON: I'm going to ask you to help us. You've been told open-source AI is an opportunity. You've been talking about open-source AI. But perhaps you can tell us what is closed AI and what is open AI, why -- why should we be excited about open AI?
>> Barbara Glover: Thank you to all of you and the organizers for this event.
I think open AI opportunities for the African Continent. We're looking at where our young workers who we work with would not have the cost or funds when we get AI innovations, have that opportunity to still build AI models and tools.
I'll give you an example of the work, for instance, we do with META on the [?] and how we can utilize some of these Llama platforms to offer our young innovators with the opportunity to also be on the AI ecosystem and develop tools and stuff with building on this.
The closed AI option, closed source AI option would be one that would require an investment that for low or middle income countries would be something that -- I mean, I will not be able to afford. For instance, when you're looking to some of the reports [?] related to AI, you would see a breadth of resources that are being used for young people that help them to develop the tools, whether it has to do with AI applications in health care, AI applications in African local languages, they have that opportunity or that leapfrog to be able to develop tools that are needed to address present challenges.
So I do see open source as a great, great opportunity by which we should be leveraging.
>> ALLISON: Thanks so much, Barbara. Maybe you can close on that by tell us, you know, what role open AI or how AI fits into the African Union's continental AI strategy.
>> ADELE SALEMON: Thank you very much, Allison. I think this is a very personal question, because you need to know what is it so that you can tackle it correctly. If you don't -- if you don't know the definition, I'm wearing my policy hat so I'm not going to give you a technical definition.
But as my colleague said, it's an opportunity for Africa. Particularly Africa is trying to achieve its 2063 agenda. And we see as an enabler to achieve this agenda, in light of the recent AI strategy that was developed, I think as mentioned by our sister here that the close AI is very expensive.
For Africa we're resource limited. So open AI is going to be good for Africa. We have used [?] that we can use and others who can be engaged in the open AI. There is transparency where community can work together to build systems, open AI systems. I think that's also important.
We are aware of the challenges of open AI in terms of security, in terms of intellectual properties issues. But I think the benefits outweigh these issues.
As mentioned by the first speaker that I think that the policy -- our role is to make it to provide conducive environment for the African youth so that they can use it safely and then -- and then we can scale up AI across the continent.
I think also it's also an opportunity to have an Africa we want in terms of AI. So it's an African-led AI I think we have islands of excellence across Africa where countries like that are excelling in certain areas of AI. We can leverage all these excellences in terms of infrastructure, in terms of capacity and coding and all this technical stuff.
Together we think we can build something really [?] towards the realization of the AI strategy. One of the goals is enabling the agenda of the 2063, but also for inclusivity so that everybody is going to be part of this journey, has got in undertaken.
And I think since it's cheap, it's available, and I think that then Africa can make the best out of this technology and systems so that we can leapfrog into the 21st Century.
>> ALLISON: So Adele and in fact Tobias and Kojo too, you've all spoken about these opportunities and you've all indicated that there are challenges in seeing these benefits.
I mean, currently, as applied and some of these things, initiatives that you're trying to do on the continent, who can be beneficiaries? We've got over half the population on the continent who are not connected to the Internet. We've got fantastic, brilliant data scientists, they lack access to data. They lack access to computing power. And we certainly don't have the capabilities in the public sector, large part of the private sectors.
And certainly not in most of the SMEs that you're about to talk about. Which are much higher percentages. 75% are actually -- about 75% probably are informal sector. And even if they have access to the Internet, they're not using it for, you know, Internet purposes. They have a smart device, many of them don't.
So you know, how do we get to this opportunity that you've been speaking about from where we are now? So just let Adele just finish that, because he raised the inclusion thing and then I'm going to come to you.
>> ADELE SALEMON: It's a very important mission, by the way. Not only for AI, whatever we do in digital, we have fundamentals, we have to work on the fundamentals, on the digital space, and but to me, what I see the opportunity, the issue we're going to face when we do scaling. When you scale the systems I think you will face this issue because you don't have connectivity.
But you can fill the focal -- the focus point of AI in the cities. Like when you start building this centre of excellencies in the cities, where you have connectivity, and I think, yes, we're going to face the issue of scaling with the -- with the -- with the -- when we come to launching AI in the rural, remote areas and things like that.
But of course we -- there is also in terms of infrastructure where we can, you know, deploy DPIs and then maybe community-led solutions instead of -- instead of, like -- instead of, like, having AI deployed all the benefit of AI deployed across the board.
I'll give you an example. For instance, in the agenda 2063, we are focusing on education, health, right, [?] and agriculture. Right.
So we see the communities where we need to focus more on agriculture. So then we tailor our solution, connectivity's going to be part of the -- of this equation. But then we are going to be solution based. We talk to our international partner, to the government, to the private sectors, researchers, and then entrepreneurs and then even the company, Big Tech company so that all together we join hands.
And I think most of the deployment of these solutions is going to be the fundamentals. Like the issue you mentioned. Which was of course we are going to -- we are facing across the board.
But these fundamentals are going to be embedded in the solution that are provided, like if it's education from it's health services that we are going to provide, and so forth.
I know it's not easy, but of course these fundamentals of course is going to be a big issue.
I think the questions in front of us whether to first work on the fundamentals and then do AI or do them in parallel.
>> ALLISON: And I think we don't have options. We have to do everything at the same time, which is always our challenge in every area. But just before Kojo comes in, so we know that the major problem, major problem for digital inclusion is not just connectivity. We've got most of the continent covered and we've still got these very, very low penetration rates especially in least developed countries.
This presents a skill in terms of having the skills in order to become representative in these databases and things like that.
So I think it's a bigger challenge than connectivity. It's this big human development challenge that we have to address at the same time.
And you know, maybe AI can help us with that. But you're speaking specifically about the digital economy and using AI to catalyze the digital economy in this session. So Kojo, why don't you tell us what META does in this record.
>> KOJO BOAKE: I'll do that as an attempt to answer that other question. Because all four panelists, I wish there was a fifth, but I think the question that I felt you were putting, hold on, there's a great opportunity in front of us. How do we make sure that millions of people who are -- it's happened. There needs to be this continued investment in connectivity. I still believe that's an issue. You might talk about mobile coverage being extensive and people --
>> ALLISON: I think it's human skills to use --
>> KOJO BOAKE: I agree. There's work we have done on sub-C cables to take things internationally and take it across the continent. But we need to get to the price point where it's affordable. I sit on the board of the GDIP and many others that you know and it's still a challenge. I think META is invested in the first cable to link West to East Africa or East to West Africa, whatever way you'd like, going around Southern Africa for the first time helps with that. As do investments by other companies who for this purpose will remain nameless but you can Google it. But they've done fantastic work there as well so not so nameless.
You then need to start thinking about the kind of investment -- it's not build and they will come. It's been downloaded a billion times. But we've done work since 2023 to catalyze usage. So our Llama impact grants were a fantastic initiative launched in 2023, thousands of applications for these grants between 50 and 200,000. And two of the winners of that impact round were African players. Digital Green and Jacaranda health.
So they've gone on to do fantastic work to resolve some of the issues that are most important.
So Digital Green does kind of information to farmers, preSMS in rural areas built on Llama. Helping revolutionize yields and farming outcomes.
Jacaranda Health does maternal health with women having children post and pre and improving outcomes.
If you have time, do apply, the accelerator grant for Llama as well, which is giving NGOs, commercial players mentors or potential commercial players mentors and support to use these technologies to meet these goals.
And I think that's the part of the way to go in the continued investment in connectivity, efforts to bring down the cost of devices.
I saw a doctor in the halls and I call him mentor of mine because of the way -- you see penetration, not rocket science, penetration jumped by 200,000. We need vision and initiatives like that. You need training programs like the ones I mentioned, impact grants, accelerated grants.
But at the same time something we're focusing on is how do you help governments. I traveled across Africa and I see UAE, Ethiopia doing amazing things. Minister from Nigeria was here. How can companies like ours work with government to get people to use it as well. I think that creates a multiplier effect it you have countries in which some may argue the social contract between government and people has broken down completely and you give governments the opportunity through Llama to try and revolutionize the judiciary, education systems, health systems, et cetera.
Those people who may not be able to use Llama, don't want to code on Llama but want the benefit of it, have access to some of the benefits of it.
Finally, Allison, because I've taken a bit of your time.
In part, in my view, to dispel this concern about the risks of AI which are valued and we need to work on them, is to get it on people's devices. Amongst the first countries in the world to see META AI, I know there are other apps that many people use. But META AI on people's devices were places like Ghana and Nigeria where we embedded it in Whatsapp and Facebook to give people access and opportunity to use what is at the moment a very basic form of AI.
You ask what's Kojo, what's he talking about today, it might --
>> ALLISON: It comes even if you don't ask it, you get anyway.
>> KOJO BOAKE: And we're trying to ward against that, if you could lock it down. Giving people access to it is going to be super important to helping them resolve issues. If you're in Ghana and Nigeria where uptake has been fantastic, we're seeing young Africans, middle aged Africans, old Africans using AI and clearly gaining benefit from having access as well.
It's those investments, investing along every area in making sure that the areas that all four of us have spoken about come to fruition.
>> ALLISON: I'm going go quickly after this to hear some more of the possibilities, use cases, the interesting things that we can catalyze -- get AI to catalyze the economy.
But the things you've been speaking about would enable the economy if people actually using this technology in their daily lives and those who are connected and online and meaningfully online.
But a lot of critique has been about the embedding of these systems in our local systems. And so, you know, we become locked into these, I mean, Adele was speaking about, you know, deployment of DPIs and enormous potential for AI in producing -- making those more effective, efficient.
But the danger, of course, there is that although people, you know, data scientists who are using Llama say that they've got -- there's a kind of front end openness to it. There's actually not a back end openness to it that would allow them to really developing, you know, stuff that they could build on independently and pass on.
So just to respond, because I think that is what some people would regard as a risk is that you actually need -- you know, big tech systems are embedded in your public sector, social systems, everything else.
>> KOJO BOAKE: So if I -- couple things. If I understand your question correctly, I think we want to give people control over their use of META AI within apps.
>> ALLISON: Users.
>> KOJO BOAKE: Yeah, user.
>> ALLISON: Data scientists.
>> KOJO BOAKE: When it comes to data scientists and researchers who download and use Llama, I think they would argue the weights we share and Llama was an engineer but with Llama 4 we've shared more information than ever before. One of the major benefits of open source, the ability to give them control. The data that we share and that we use to train the model is pretty open.
I think I started the first question we suggesting there is no binary open and closed -- there are models that will be deemed closed, far more closed. We believe our model is open, fine tuneable, trainable, and adaptable.
And I think in part the feedback we get from the community, some better than others most of the time, but the feedback we got from the Llama 4 wasn't great initially but has improved. The feedback we get not only helps us create a better model next time, but is evidence the fact that the data science community, the people who don't want to use AI but train it and fine tune it and all those kind of things actually see a lot of benefit from doing it.
So I push back slightly on that.
>> ALLISON: We'll come back. Tobias, I saw you were nodding to some of these. What is GIZ doing in developing more organic or Indigenous -- you know, enabling people to be able to respond to these open-source AI options that are becoming available?
>> TOBIAS TEALE: I would say in the first place, GIZ, of course, approaches the issue of AI primarily from a developmental angle and not from a commercial one. So as development agency we don't pursue any economic profit, sort of objectives.
And we're quite a fast digital portfolio on the continent. Whether at the continental level with our friends from the African Union, whether with the regional economic communities, bilaterally down to the community level.
And perhaps one interesting case that we have, we have an initiative called fair forward. Artificial tells for all, and there we're basically working to really build inclusive AI ecosystems.
So we partner up with a lot of local organizations for initiatives like the Lacuna Fund or the open for good alliance to address one of the, I would say, most major AI gaps in the Global South, which is data.
And so what we do, we have local researchers and innovators to use, create, high level or high-quality label and localized datasets.
Because at the end of the day, the model of the data is the backbone that really matters. And the idea is then to use these datasets to take a real-world challenges in sectors such as agriculture, energy, education, health, I mean, basically across the board of the sectors that we work.
And maybe to make it a bit more tangible, I think a few examples of how we -- that we do that where we really try to create value added for local communities is for example, AI is used through picture recognition for local farmers, where you can take a picture of a plant and diagnosis sort of pests and develop adequate responses or satellite data that's been analysed by AI to identify good places to build local renewable energy and communities that are not electrified, which then would also have a positive impact on the community overall.
Perhaps another important part of this programme, of this initiative is language. Language is really a core pillar. And there we work with Mozilla's common voice and we basically support the co-creation of open speech datasets in also languages that usually are not covered.
You have -- we know there are thousands of different languages on the continent, so one particular case we work on Swahili and Ugandan, both languages that are undercovered in commercial AI systems to make them more inclusive.
We also work with a project called AI made in Africa where we try to make existing data available to researchers and innovators so that they can really create solutions that -- that -- African solutions for African problems which is one of the models of the AU.
I still think it's important, though, to recognise that there's a bigger picture here, and I think that what we do in terms of access is important, but it's also -- it's also not enough.
I mean, I think when we see what has been discussed here in the various panels that we had this week, there are really a lot of challenges and you mentioned also initially that we can't do only one thing and wait for the other. But we need to tackle these challenges simultaneously.
And I think beyond data access, I think there's also an issue in terms of digital literacy. I think we need to build stronger digital literacy, tailored capacity building and that both for regulators, but also for innovators.
I also believe that it's important to ensure that any AI tools have proper maintenance strategy, that they improve, maintained, and secured in the long term.
And I think that's also where open source governance can play an important role.
And lastly, and I think that's really perhaps one of the -- probably the most challenging point, is that I think we need alliances to really develop shared computing infrastructure. And that's -- because that's really the most resource intensive part, especially in underserved regions.
So I think we have to be also a bit realistic in terms of what open AI can -- open-source AI can do. I think it's not a silver bullet either. I mean, it has some potential for leapfrogging, but at the same time if we're really realistic, I think we have to recognise that it cannot fully fix the inequalities, the geo economic inequalities between the Global North and South. There are simply some hard facts in terms of GDP, in terms of market sizes and so on that I'm sure you know much better than me, but what kind of considerations go into -- into that.
But despite this, I really believe that open-source AI can make a difference if we connect the dots.
I think it's the best shot we have to really support leapfrogging for the continent.
>> ALLISON: Thanks very much, Tobias.
Adele, maybe just sort of building on that, we've got the AI continent strategy in place and you've said that open AI or open-source AI is a principle behind it.
But a lot of challenges at the moment lie around the implementation of that. I think we have, you know, a scattering of different AI blueprints, things that have come at different times doing different things, representing different interests. A lot of them other than the continental strategy were funded for -- driven different agendas on those. How do we ensure that we begin to get the framework and I think with the continental data framework, data policy framework we do have some of the governance underpinnings for that. But how do we extend that implementation so that this enabling environment for -- that can manage the risk that can enable local entrepreneurs, local scientists to use open source for, you know, in the public interest or for --
>> ADELE SALEMON: Yeah, sure. I think actually we're working on another framework for open -- open source data. So -- and it's going to be reviewed and considered by the minister, by the end of the year. Early November. We're also drafting an implementation strategy, and M&E also part of this implementation strategy.
SAM is doing to be looked at during the ministerial meeting end of this year.
So I think we are not at the Commission we're not addressing open AI as such, but they are doing all the homework, all the enabling environment for open -- for open AI so that when it's being recognized and it's being launched, everything is there to be able to make sure that we launch it safely and also with all the barriers removed.
I think -- originally I think you raised a really good point about the -- about the fact that we need to make sure that when we do open AI -- AI in general, and specifically open-source AI, we need to make sure that, you know, the AI agenda 2063 and talking about Africa for all, Africa first and all of that, sovereignty of Africa, I think we need to make sure that the solutions are not going to be -- to cause us more problem than benefit.
I think open AI give us this opportunity so that we are going to be doing things within Africa and making sure that, you know, we don't repeat the experience of social media and all that.
Because we don't have -- we didn't have control over -- we don't have control over this -- all this new technology coming into Africa. And I think for me, the metric would be if the African government and the African communities, the African families, they can control what is it -- what part of AI they want to take and what part of AI they don't want to consider.
Because otherwise, then you lose your sovereignty. And I think one way is to do it at home. It's going to be difficult, but you have to do it locally so you can control what aspect -- because there's a cultural aspect of it. It's not the same in western as it is in Africa.
So we need to make sure when we build it it satisfies all these requirement in terms of [?] and in terms of tradition and so forth.
So I think for me, as I said, in my family do I have control what kind of AI systems and applications that are going to be in my family or I don't have. As a country, you have control. What aspect of AI I want to use and what aspect of AI I don't want to use.
If I fail that, I think we failed in terms of, you know, the Africa we want and all the technology we want.
>> ALLISON: Okay, maybe it's a question we can get an answer to from the floor.
Do we have control -- hear from countries, from a sovereignty point of view. Do we have control over what AI is coming into our countries.
>> KOJO BOAKE: And what's the risk of control. There's a couple things --
>> ALLISON: Absolutely. Can we just get -- can we get Barbara on that. Because we're come back to some of the risks and some of the risks of control which you identified as well.
Barbara, you're working with scientists and maybe scientists who also sit with entrepreneurs actually with start-ups and those things.
So just speak about, I mean, is open AI seen or open-source AI seen as this fabulous opportunity? I think a lot of these you've spoken with them yourself with your partnerships with META and how people have responded to these.
And what feedback do you get, because I do know you've dealt with data scientists who are often feeling sort of squeezed out of, for example, local language -- large local language modeling because the data, the translation, all the technology already exist, you know, with Google or, you know, AWS or somebody can come in and do something very quickly and actually local scientists could do if they were given the opportunity to do those.
Just in the context of open source AI, just speak about some of the positive and possibly negative things if you to come across them.
>> Barbara Glover: I'll sergeant with the negative and end with the positive. I think in terms of AI one of the raising concerns has been trust. Just trust in the open AI system and the need for more understanding of what that means.
And we've been getting more young innovators to be interested or -- I mean the scientists and the data scientists that we work with.
And I think also open AI kind of thrives if there isn't effective data harmonization or policies that don't encourage sharing of data.
So but there's some innovators for instance that have approached [?] bodies that can get some data that can feed in the work that they're doing. But even though there are policies that support this, they're not able to access that data because the harmonization standards are not being implemented as effectively as it should be. So then they get frustrated in that there's open source data from people but it's not being seen on ground.
But one thing that -- that highlights the positives for us looking more and more at open-source AI approaches is the fact that when you -- I don't know how many people in the room read the article that "New York Times" release I did think a week ago looking at the location of data centers across the globe.
So you see so many of the places have blue dots all over and you come to Africa and it's just down in South Africa.
These are realities. Africa probably won't be a leader in computing. They won't be a leader for [?] or even in infrastructure.
We need to look what is our niche. What is it that we can do better. And I think that these are opportunities that open-source AI provides, it provide our young people with an opportunity to create a niche for Africa in this space.
And we are over 60% young population, and these are talented people that are using these I.T. skills to dance on Tiktok.
How can they leverage some of that and using it to address real challenges that happen on the continent. And those are opportunities that I believe that open-source AI provide that we should not miss.
We just wrapping up, for instance, our health conference in Cairo and one of the discussions was on [?] boiling the ocean. I've seen more and more conversations on the continent, African solutions, African people, and the message around that. But we also want to look at how realistic some of these ideas are.
What are the -- what is it that we can leverage as Africa, what kind of unique niche we have that we can utilize more effectively.
And I believe that's where those open source structure provide the opportunity. Our young people don't have to wait for government to catch up on infrastructure, to catch up on supercomputes and all these issues before they can harness the world of AI.
I think it's a opportunity that we should not be missing. And that's one thing that I've seen in the government agency we have tried to bring into conversations when we meet with local innovators and what is it that you can do with it now.
Realistically as Africa, yes, we have dreams of how it should look. But realistically in the sentence, what is it that it can leverage.
I was listening to a presentation by META where they show what is being done in Tanzania where they use the Llama platform for malaria elimination efforts. And the presenter was saying they didn't approach META do this. They got into the platform and use it for great stuff.
I thought this is when we want to see our young people do and we should be leveraging these things, address your own problems without necessarily waiting for the great infrastructure that -- and the data centers than ore countries may have and that we unfortunately may not have as a continent.
We're shaping that conversation more and more. I'm happy to hear from our partner, our colleagues from the African Commission that you developed the open source framework. I think that this is timely. And I think as a developing agency we're happy to shape the inputs and be able to ensure that our young people are leveraging this within African [?] to be able to harness AI effectively.
>> ALLISON: Barbara, thanks to much for that. We're come together challenges, but I'm aware of the time and I know you've got exciting initiatives that you want to speak about that are going to catalyze the digital economy in Africa.
But before we -- we can go to the risks and straight on to the opportunities that you want to speak about. But I thought if we could quickly just see if there's some questions from the room before we go into the next section.
Or Christelle, if we've got any questions online.
>> KOJO BOAKE: I think there's a question.
>> ALLISON: Thank you.
>> JOSE: Thank you very much. I'm Jose from Ghana. I would like to ask two -- I'll just ask one.
The path of AI is path of riches when it comes to Africa and distinguished panelist have articulated the challenges and all that. But how can Africa, we advance AI and other emerging technologies at the fraction of the billions, trillions being spent. Global North while still ensuring equity and the long-term health of all these new tools or say new technologies? What current models can be replicated? Okay, let me stop there.
>> ALLISON: Thank you so much that's a great question and hopefully our panel can answer that as we move on to the ethics section.
Because I think the question of ensuring, you know, equity, safety, a lot of things that you are speaking about, really speak to this enabling environment we want. So we do want to enable people to us at technologies, investments of the technologies. It doesn't all have to be Large Language Models and use of AI, there can be other models of AI that we can be developing.
But what are the governance, maybe not regulation, but I think maybe governance and frameworks that we need that are both predictive but also enabling that will ensure, you know, people have access to open source systems or to be able to deploy those for other purposes? Kojo, did you want to just -- could you start by talking about the control?
>> KOJO BOAKE: Yeah, I think it's a mix of things. And I was grateful for the question about equity. I wasn't sure whether the question was when the world is tech present in 65 billion, how do you have equity and all kinds of stuff.
I think we've spoken to the fact that open source at this point in time, we've got AI and opportunity in front of us, is probably the only way to level the playing field. Certainly at META that's how we see it. By putting models that people's hand and they tonight need to invest 65 billion to get a model where we from.
You can build a model that's local to that as some way to do. You're not every going to be at a stage or ever, I don't think you'll be at a stage in the near future where an Africa company will say here's 65 billion in 26 or 2026 to invest in compute. I don't know if you'll get equality in that kind of way, I'll stress now. Although I pray and honestly God will answer at some point in the near future we will have that.
On the issue of leveling the playing field, go back to my bread and butter for policy and regulation, there's some key things we can do. We have to be included in the conversation and include ourselves in the conversation.
They are ongoing. I was speaking in 20 -- I lose track of years, 2023 at the secretary Blinken's event at the time and speaking about responsible AI and benchmarking and that kind of stuff. Which is a conversation that has continued. That speaks to some of the ways we might drive equity inclusion in terms of no African left behind, all kinds of stuff to drive increased equity.
But we need to have policymakers included. The reason why I was asking about control, which I hope is linked to this a bit, Allison, is that control can be misinterpreted. I'm a historian. My first degree was African history. My master's was development studies.
I appreciate we have to learn from past mistakes and that should inform how we look at AI, completely get it. I respect the office and every government. My view is that they should retain sovereignty and maintain it. I'm on record as saying that now.
But I do have concerns when people start speaking about control. Because control for me negates in some ways or may in some jurisdictions, with some governments negate what I have a bias and believe in. Which is the innate ingenuity and brilliance of young Africans. And I've spoke with those, whether it be Jacaranda health or others serving 3 million people, these were ideas born in the minds of Africans and being developed and executed using Llama and AI.
And those things despite having some policy and control in their regulatory environment, have gone on to do amazing things. I understand governments want to put regulation in. But we should have some caution for the full opportunity that this presents.
>> ALLISON: Perhaps we can pick that up, but I think when we were talking about control, talking about controlling big take, not the small take. But just to take that idea, because I think it's an important one where you don't have democratic human rights and access to very powerful technology and you control that access, very bad things can happen.
But assuming you within normative frameworks, international frameworks that we have, I mean, I think -- and I think particularly in Africa and the work that we are doing within the G20, our first African G20, you know, I think there's a lot of recognition that, in fact, you did not get equity, you to not get innovation unless you create the conditions for innovation.
And unless you actually regulate access to data, you're not going to just get it or you're not going to get what you need unless you access, you know, unless you regulate mechanisms to open up, you know, compute power. These kinds of things.
>> KOJO BOAKE: Right.
>> ALLISON: You're not going to get it.
I think there's a strong argument, I'm completely with you on kind of political control is problematic. Constraints and safety nets and all sorts of things.
But in order to make this work in Africa, we do have to regulate the conditions that will protect people's harms. Importantly for this session, but also for Africa, the enabling conditions for this to drive, catalyze the digital economy that we've spoken about.
So Adele, just in the continental framework, there's, you know, reference to the kinds of governance that one would require from the African government.
>> ADELE SALEMON: Yes, I'm optimistic despite the question. This is an opportunity, Africa is make the best of it as mentioned by Kojo, I think it's -- open-source AI can maybe level the playing field. And I think some of the policy that we are pushing is like, for instance, we have in terms of open innovation platforms so that everybody will be part of the innovation journey in Africa.
I think it's important. And on the capacity building, I think we need to move, we need it have a holistic approach to capacity building. You start from early education, PhD, and then just make sure that we have it from A to Z, everybody's well capacitated. At least the community's aware of the pros and cons of AI and how to handle different things.
I think this is another thing that we could do.
Also chairing platforms, you know, infrastructure platforms so that people can -- can -- can work on AI and vision.
I'm a strong believer in the -- in the mind and skills of Africans. And they're predominantly youth. You know, young people. Young people, they can do wonder if you give them the tools. So I think maybe the next big thing is going to come out of Africa if you go that route.
The other thing also, true if you work individually as a country, I think maybe you don't go -- you don't go far. We have to work collectively, the African country, because we see like there are some also -- there's some advance country in Africa who are doing very well in terms of AI. So we need to leverage all this expertise in Africa and just make sure that we work collectively on AI.
And that's why I talk about this aspect, I'm not talk about the political control, whatever. It's just -- we just do things that you -- because we want the Africa we want, right? So we need to work towards that. This is the Africa we want.
Like for instance, we are doing AI for development. We are not doing [?] we're not going to put lethal use of AI. But if you leave it open, it will come to you and then the world is going to be a disaster. It's going to be uncontrollable.
So that's what I meant when I said --
>> ALLISON: Yeah.
>> ADELE SALEMON: So you have to have some control. You need to do inclusion and all this objective that we have in our EU agenda 2063. So do that, you need to make sure you to it in-house. But I think over time you will get there.
>> ALLISON: So Tobias, some of the issues we're talking now just kind of collective and harmonized frameworks and things are the things that would provide Africa with a kind of economies of scale and scope that these data and AI kind of markets need.
And GIZ's been working with African Union and institutions, regional economic communities on the continent to of a chief this.
Just how far are we and what -- you know, what are the kind of urgent issues now to move that forward?
I'll just give you a very quick example. You know with the African Union data policy framework we had a whole lot of fantastic principles, including the idea of, you know, creating public value. Because there was all this public data that we need to get out there and make available to people.
But to deal with the enormous competition challenges and asymmetries from Big Tech or biotech providers that we would want preferential access to open data, public data for local entrepreneurs and that kind of thing before it gets gobbled up.
But that is completely, you know, prevented by the African Continental free trade area, digital protocols, which have cut and paste from WTO. Trade always trumps everything else.
So just in terms of you're working on continent, you're supporting these initiatives, there's obviously a lack of coordination at some level around are these all African Union initiatives. But we're still in our silos, our digital sector silo and trade silo. What are the challenges there from supporting this, you know, agenda 2063, et cetera, that we all committed to?
>> TOBIAS TEALE: Maybe before I answer your question, let me respond to what I my peers said with regard to regulation. I'm a strong believer it's not about control. We have too much danger and calibrating this wrongly when you see the different types of leadership that you have on the continent or beyond.
And I think in that sense it's -- I think it will be easy for us to agree that we need fair and abling and risk conscious regulation. For me it's what is the process to get there.
I think what's really essential there is the need to have really collaborative partnerships where you bring a variety of different perspectives together. That's the public sector or regional institutions like the African Union, that's the private sector, it's academia, Civil Society, that should also be actually users and beneficiaries perspectives, youth, women. And so I think there's -- I think if we ensure that we have the right process, I think that will really be the way to help us calibrate regulation in a proper way.
And I think in that sense, the African Union plays a really important role as a continental norm setter. And I think some of the frameworks you mentioned, data policy framework, I think is an extremely important prerequisite. I think the key challenge that I see there is really how do we get this on the ground.
I mean, we're working with limited resources. The programme that we have have to help domesticate the EU data because currently requests from 35 different African states to help put this framework, which is -- unless it's implemented is a document that has no value -- we've 35 requests of different African countries want us to support them to implement that.
And that -- then it becomes again a question of resources.
I think another important aspect also to calibrate regulation well is I think also one of bargaining power. I mean, I had in the context of this week I had a number of bilaterals with the number of African digitalization organizers.
When you look at this from the small states with populations of two, 3 million inhabitants where you have maybe not more than 300,000 connected users, even that is probably an overcount, what kind of bargaining power do you have until.
That's where it's important for the EU states to get together and pull resources and increase their bargaining power. It's the same thing at the European Union does in negotiation with the United States and so on.
So I think those some realities that we really need to -- need to take into consideration.
>> ALLISON: I'm not going to return to the question, I'll stop there because we're running out of time and I want to see if there's an online question from Christelle.
Christelle, can you hear me and I can hear you?
>> CHRISTELLE ONANA: Yes. There is a question online. How can open-source AI communities in the African Continent be supported and sustained? This is from Ghana Gauff.
>> ALLISON: Thanks, Christelle. Is there another question?
>> I think somebody was attempting --
>> ALLISON: Okay. Is there another question online? We'll take a couple and people can give a scattered response.
>> CHRISTELLE ONANA: It was the only one.
>> ALLISON: Okay, thank you. We've got another question in the room and then Barbara, we'll start with you so that you can lead off the answering of the questions.
>> I think the question of Africa's position on AI is something that [?] they're quite proactive in establishing and as we know the WSIS+ review process is coming up. Africa has taken a proactive step even before this particular process comes up to issue various frameworks, as you rightly pointed out. ADPF, the position paper, the GDC, African contribution. The AI strategy.
Are we seeing in the future opposition where continentally or at Member State level a departure for the adoption of open-source AI to boost digital economy? Is it something that the panelist would support even if it's in contravention or in opposition to Africa's position on the use of open AI?
That's my question to you. As we are quick to see the adoption of open-source AI as an opportunity, we also need to look at [?] policy standpoint, the adaptability, what that really means when it comes to Member States enforcing their interests.
I think we've touched on this question a bit more. But my question then arises, you know, with the WSIS+ coming up and all these other processes globally continuing, do we see a strategy Africa has today concede and take up open-source AI for economic benefit in contravention to its policy standpoint? Thanks.
>> ALLISON: Can you just clarify the position that you're saying is different -- that is different from Africa's position in WSIS? Which specific position are you --
>> No, no, I'm not saying there's a different position. I'm saying the process is coming up and one of the elements being discussed is AI [?]
>> ALLISON: Okay. So where should we stand on that.
>> Exactly.
>> ALLISON: Barbara, take any question you'd like, but I think the first question particularly is geared to the work that NEPAD's doing in this area and trying to enable access to open AI.
>> BARBARA Glover: I think our approach has looking to the AI not just for the training quarters for the purpose of training quarters or getting people into AI just for the purpose of it.
But we're trying to look at problem solving approach for these. For the robotic competition we have these grouped in categories. Each of these categories are addressing a problem whether it's health care, education, mining industry challenges, whatever present issues we have as in the science technology, innovation strategy for Africa. So we're framing those community outputs in tangible impacts. That's how we can ensure these committees become sustainable because you're solving real time problems.
Also when it comes to education system that build up these communities, where we want to look at domain specific education. So just giving broad AI and the person must look at everything. But how do we contextualize some of these communities to provide education in specific sectors regardless health, education, agriculture, where it's seen as one of the panelist had asked as a road into development and not just the new technology, cutting away from the buzz and just looking at practically how we can use it to address many of these problems.
We are doing that already with our innovators in AI competition. This year we just rounded up that competition, we had over 2,000 submissions that once we profiled them and look at what levels they are, we'll then also move them to look at how we can get them to crack some of these innovations and solutions in a more did he main specific approach addressing problems that have been (background noise) identified as challenges on the continent.
>> ALLISON: Thank you so much, Barbara. I think the new answers that she's trying to get to, what is the purpose of it, who can use it, the central application will help us move this ahead. What is pragmatic here, what is the potential there.
And perhaps something we haven't discussed very much, we've spoken a lot about regulation. But within regulation of course you know, great utility incentives. So maybe also just as you wrap up, to just speak about from your perspectives where you are, what, you know, what those might be. But to answer the more political question on, you know, where Africa's position on this you somebody within the context of this action line in the World Summit of the Information Society.
>> KOJO BOAKE: So I'm going to try and attempt to answer five questions. One, my view has been for 30 five years that closed mouths don't get fed.
On the question about the community and how they can leverage open-source AI more, I think there is first a need for the community to come together. And there are so many across this continent that are already doing that. But grow those communities is important.
And then for those communities to access the kind of programs that META puts out whether it be the impact grants I've spoken about, the accelerator, as well as other companies. Every time I go on LinkedIn I see a programme by Google, Microsoft, other smaller players involved in this space. There's a lot out there for the community and we should continue trying to continue to investigate in it and grow that piece.
The gentleman's question I didn't quite catch, Allison. Is there this decision we'll have to make on whether we use open-source AI and sacrifice something else is kind of what I got.
I speak to ministers, heads of state, regulators across the continent and we started off with this panel by all in unison saying this is a huge opportunity that we need to seize.
As I think about how government are approaching this for the most part, they're all trying to seize this opportunity. And even the AU as a body, robust body for kind of coordinating and trying to drive the harmonization is doing it. We've done work with the development agency to develop a Llama-based app to help small and medium-advise business. The core of this session was how to move the economy. So it was to help them open businesses across the continent. I think that's a ringing endorsement from the African Union as well as others of the opportunity in front of us.
I'm not sure at this stage about getting more granular. I see a hard decision to make for the continent at the moment. Maybe I'm not understanding the question properly. That's how I see it.
>> ALLISON: I think there's this big commitment and enthusiasm. But I think, you know, it's not unconditional. That there's certain conditions that you're enabling and not capitulate, amplify inequalities, et cetera, et cetera.
I think that was sort of the question. Tobias, we are time up and I'm going to give you main and Adele a minute and we'll be talking to ourselves and probably lose our sound as well.
>> TOBIAS TEALE: I'll try to answer seven questions with zero seconds of time. Maybe just a few selective points.
I would find it presumptuous, I would hope for it to be African led process that's African and truly inclusive that's enabling business friendly, but also risk conscious. I think those are, from my perspective, the key elements. But I think the local ownership is really the most important part.
So and yeah, on that, the other thing is that I'm really convinced that -- that future of AI and Africa will not be built in silos. And I think in that sense it has to come from collaboration and from speaking out from the perspective of GIZ. We see our self very much -- we're not a tech primarily a tech organization, we see ourselves as a convenor and enabler and in that sense we're happy to play our role.
Also to provide the glue that holds these collaborations together.
>> ALLISON: Thanks so much, Tobias.
>> ADELE SALEMON: As a matter of principle, we're being consistent. We want AI for peaceful and the social and economic development and we are also advocating for ethical use of AI.
So that -- this has been articulated in the African digital compact that we submitted to the UN. And also now we are also formulating the common position on the WSIS+20. And we're going to articulate the same position.
So also we are also advocating for a seat for Africa when it comes to policy making and AI governance I think is very important.
I think the WSIS that you mentioned is very important. Because Africa has been left behind in many of the decision-making in the previous century. But I think we need to position ourselves more when it comes to the -- when -- in the global decision-making when it comes to AI. I think it's very crucial that we are part of this decision-making process.
And this is what we are doing articulate when we develop our WSIS+10 position, African position on this as well as -- 20, sorry.
>> ALLISON: WSIS+20. Thank you, Adele and thanks so much to our panelists and our audience who sat with us for so long at the end of a long day. And people online, thank you so much for staying with us. And finally to our audio and crew people here for indulging us with a few extra minutes.
Thank you so much.
>> Thank you to the excellent moderation.
>> ALLISON: Thank you. Thank you.
(Applause)