A Roadmap for AI for Development in Africa

1. A Roadmap for AI for Development in Africa

4. Supported by

5. Government AI Readiness Index

7. Goals for workshop • scope out the African ML/AI landscape • Create an African AI research roadmap • Support the development of cross-continent cooperation

8. What have we discussed? Policy and Regulation: Shape ethical and rights based AI Capacity: Build local skills in AI Applications: Support locally driven applications for the public interest

9. Governance

10. Key Needs Designing regulatory frameworks that both stimulate AI innovation, while minimizing harms (to civil liberties) – the latter should not stifle the former - these frameworks don’t exist yet African context: Need regulatory frameworks that are designed for the African context, not simply importing western-designed frameworks Need for regulatory learning -ensure regulation is learning from advancements in AI, so that regulation doesn’t stifle AI advancements wit policy rapid responses Trust: Need for greater transparency and accountability of algorithms for greater trust. How do we do that? Quantification of harm: Need research to identify and quantify potential harms to be able to gauge whether it is a an acceptable level of risk – as well research to quantify the benefits of AI (Do we need pre-emptive regulation for pre-emptive harm?)

11. Existing Initiatives • PASET: Partnership for skills in applied science engineering and technology (AU) – 4th industrial revolution forum – Kigali May • AI and blockchain task force in Kenya • RIA: Research ICT Africa – policy papers • PRIDA – Policy and Regulation Initiative for Digital Africa (AU-EU) • Open AIR: AI innovation • RightsCon– Tunis – algorithmic transparency • DRIF: Digital Rights inclusion Forum DRIF’19 – Lagos yearly • AUDA – NEPAD: flagship projects – AI • ACFTA: Africa Continental Free Trade Area

12. 5 Year Targeted Outcomes • 30 African countries to have AI specific policies • To have 15 ratifications and 30 signatures to African Data protection and Cybercrimes Convention • To have quality AI policies that include: • Multi-stakeholder and evidence based input • Systematic inclusion of normative framework (laws) into system protocols. • AI regulation that is ethical and rights based • Context specific regulation for Africa

13. Policy Research Capacity Goal • To have 5 regional research centers that have the long term vision of being centers of excellence in Africa • Towards a center of excellence in each country that are responsive to AI policies and windows of opportunities • To have 500 researchers which includes: • Policy researchers that understand AI • AI researchers who understand policy • Majority works for the public interest

14. Effective Global Policy Engagement • Participation: • Guarantee a minimum number of Africans to be involved in setting the policy and policy research agenda globally; • Ensure African researchers are meaningfully involved in ALL global AI conversations; • Research Funding support: • just in time and long term research questions • Support for effective research communications • Activities: • Peer mentorship for quality research; • Access to journals and legislation portals; • Online and event-based knowledge sharing facility.

15. Short-term steps • Online network sharing • DRIF April 23-5th – Workshop on Algorithmic Transparency – Arthur Gwagwa • Rightscon meeting in June to ID next steps • AI for Good Summit 28-31 May 2019 - Geneva, Switzerland • IGF meeting – Berlin November – further progress with new stakeholders (12th April workshop deadline)

16. Capacity

17. The Philosophy Capacitating AI Strength through Community

18. Key Needs • Context [Environment, Utility] • Need to understand what the local needs are • Why is it useful to have AI/ML [Capacity <> Funding] • Educational Agility and Clarity • Adapt to the local need [Research, Startups etc.] • Transdisciplinary • Explain and demystify AI/ML for the public. Better entrance pipelines. • Synergy • We need to understand what is going on around the continent • Sharing resources [Abundance in funding, scarcity in opportunity] • Funding • Mentorship • Collaboration

19. Existing Initiatives Existing initiatives

20. New ideas • Regional Community Capacity Development Coordination • Southern African Region • East African Region • West African Region • North African Region • Integration and sharing across regions. Nodes and SuperNodes. • Graduate 400 African PhDs in ML/AI/DS in next 5 years? • Have a research center in every African country? • Strength at all Levels = startups / education / research / training / teaching / industry / meetups = World-Class!! • Break Dichotomy between Research and Application • Collaboration with IP protections

21. Key Activities and Outcomes

22. Applications

23. Key Needs • Peer Group For AI Practitioners Providing amplification to private sector needs and strengths • Access To Funding Capital for infrastructure, PM Fit, Growth Stage ventures is rare, government funding for risky projects • Africa's Fragmented Market Challenge to getting critical mass of Customers for AI innovations • Limited access to information Limited access to academic research, open science, methods, data • Limited infrastructure Electricity, computing speeds, cloud space • Response to SDGs Private Sector and Innovations needs to respond to needs in Africa now and in future

24. Existing Initiatives • H3Africa – Human Heredity and Health in Africa • Global Pulse: UBOS • Data Science Africa • Women in data science and machine learning: agriculture • Efficient agriculture: connecting use of drones with phenotype/genotype data • Research to create personalize medicine in Western Cape Town • Social media to prevent spread of dengue – Sierra Leone, Burkina Faso • Nigeria University - AI for diagnosis, clinical decision support, digital, assessment of diseases • Kenya indigenous poultry consortium - Social media mining for students to communicate; Disease outbreak of indigenous chicken

25. Existing Initiatives • BBC/Edinburg - Translation of African languages into English • University of Cape Town - Information retrieval, cultural heritage preservation work (historical languages….), machine learning in educational technology; also • Many research groups - Data Science Africa • Element AI - Satellite imagery to identify signs of conflict, impact of natural disasters in communities, climate change, • Google Launchpad Studio • Cortex Logic VC • Africa AI show • Facebook • Microsoft HeadStart • IBM Research Labs

26. New ideas • Collaboration with non-AI communities • Challenges to scale up of best practices • Buying from local actors • Funding • Policy, legislative and regulatory frameworks • Academic Curriculum Revision

27. Points for Reflection • How might we incentivize private sector to work on AI with strong development outcomes (i.e.AI4D)? • How might we support & stimulate private sector and academic research partnership? • How might we develop a funding mechanisms (including start-up & venture capital) to support local development/use of AI?

28. Key Outcomes (5 year target) • Strong networks that includes 10-20 leading African-based companies substantially contribute to key areas of the African development agenda • Networks of telecoms, Large tech companies, universities, research centres (ILRI, ICIPE, KEMRI, etc.), Public Sector Institutions (Example: MTN Element AI, and users in Africa) • Focus on skill development and development of local solutions • Funding to collaboration on AI • Investments in AI to advance collaboration between private sector, universities and public-interest institutions. (USD 1 Billion target over the next 5 years?) • Engage VCs, Angels, Unrestricted grants to support startups for local use cases in AI for development • Global resources available for African entrepreneurs • Organising AI conferences in Africa with diverse representation • Networking platforms with global players interested in building resources • Facilitate tech transfer to local actors

29. Key Outcomes (short term) • Linkages with existing networks of practitioners • Support and learn from collaborative efforts of African organisations focused on AI4D • Explore quick wins: • Pilots between academia and sector domain experts • Embed AI fellows in NGOs etc. • Research • Identify viable AI4DEV solutions (i.e. fast implementation, massive scale) • Need to understand AI innovation cycle in Africa, including academy participation

30. Reaching the Marginalised and the Poor • Identify and work with development communities e.g. Invite development orgs to Deep Learning Indaba or other events to connect • Include diverse data sources for AI Innovation e.g. platform on big data from CGIAR, Telco data • Integrate AI into development projects from an early phase • Engage with standard setting organizations to ensure innovations scalable across use cases • Engage local leadership during problem solving and product development cycle

31. Addressing Africa's Diversity • Encourage dissemination of information. • AI Wiki, for example • Recognize the inhomogeneity of Africa: • Specific conversations with Francophone and Portuguese-speaking Africa • Engage different countries to help with contextually-relevant groupings • Create platforms for engagement of different groupings • Engage regional bodies for identifying goals

32. The work is just starting...In the next months, we will continue to engage other stakeholders in shaping these plans Website: ai4d.ai https://ai4d.ai/event/ssa-network/ Twitter: @ai4dev #ai4dev idrc.ca/ai4d

33. Focal points Applications Policy and Regulation Capacity building Leonida Mutuku CEO / Researcher Intelipro Limited / LDRI https://www.developlocal.org/ Ciira Maina Senior Lecturer Dedan Kimathi University of Technology www.ciirawamaina.com Alex Comninos Researcher Research ICT Africa https://comninos.org Kathleen Siminyu Head of Data Science Africa's Talking https://africastalking.com/ Dr. Robert Muthuri Research Fellow ICT at the Centre for IP and IT (CIPIT) Strathmore School of Law VukosiMarivate ABSA UP Chair of Data Science Dept. Computer Science, Univ. of Pretoria www.vima.co.za OlubayoAdekanmbi Chief Transformation Officer/ Convener MTN Nigeria/ Data Science Nigeria www.datasciencenigeria.org TejumadeAfonja AI Engineer AI Saturdays Lagos / InstaDeephttps://aisaturdayslagos.github.io/

35. Organizers • The International Development Research Centre (IDRC) funds research in developing countries to promote growth, reduce poverty, and drive large-scale positive change. IDRC seeks to co-design a AI for Development initiative, with a focus on research and capacity-building to develop AI applications that are inclusive, ethical, and rights-based. Through this initiative, funder partners will pool and leverage resources to help shape the rollout of AI in the global south, mainly through strengthening Southern institutions. • The Knowledge 4 All Foundation is the only European machine learning focused not-for-profit and an advocate of AI applications for reaching the UNs Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), especially SDG4. It originated from the PASCAL Network which was an EU funded Network of Excellence comprising some 1000 machine learning, statistical and optimisation researchers. It has de facto leading and building the international machine learning community, through its activities that culminated in today’s AI hype, including supporting the NIPS conference. • The Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency  (SIDA) is a government agency of the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs. Sida is responsible for organization of the bulk of Sweden's official development assistance to developing countries. • Strathmore University is a chartered university based in Nairobi, Kenya. Strathmore College was started in 1961, as the first multi-racial, multi-religious Advanced-level Sixth Form College offering science and arts subjects, by a group of professionals who formed a charitable educational trust.