iCog Labs Articles page 2

How Africa is Seizing an AI Opportunity

By Jackie Snow

Despite visa problems and limited resources, African technologists are only accelerating their research. Can they make AI work for the continent?

Tejumade Afonja was interested in artificial intelligence (AI) for years. She just wasn’t sure there was a name for it. “I didn’t know what it was called at the time,” she says.

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Ethiopia’s Long March

By Hruy Tsegaye

Towards Sustainable Tech Markets

In Ethiopia, it is customary to confuse technology as a by-product of development. Unfortunately, it is not only the average Joe or Jane who holds this erroneous belief, but most government officials and policymakers along with administrators in the public universities. Yet, technology is a tool for development.

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How AI Can Help Climate Change Combat in Africa

By Jordan Brame

As climate change intensifies across the world, impoverished nations in Africa are taking the brunt of the impact. The reality is that they are among the most ill-equipped countries in mitigating its effects. The economy of many African nations, like the majority of Third World countries, relies heavily on climate-dependent activities such as farming and tourism. This reflects the historical inequity between developed and developing countries, which magnifies the impact of climate change on the latter.

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Optimism amid challenges for IT innovators in Ethiopia

By Brook Abdu

They are in their early twenties and passionate about technology. They say they would love to invent from day in, day out; a dream they crave to live. Rediet Berhanu, Yonas Woldegebriel, and Nebiyu Ahmed were competing in ‘Solve It!’ IT competition challenge organized by the US Embassy in Addis Ababa in partnership with iCog Labs and Humanity Plus.

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Journey to Paris: Afrobytes and the Rise of African Industry

By Hruy Tsegaye

When one is travelling to Paris for business, in one of the high tourist months, there isn’t much to write about the wonderful city. In a foolish attempt to cover all the attractions, you will run like a crazy dog yet unfortunately Paris is not just big, Paris is just like ‘Quanta Firfir’ hiding countless good stuff behind her common veil. Eventually, the business traveller will give up settling on the common sites. I was the very same business traveller who gave up after The Louvre, Arc de Triomphe, Eiffel Tower, Palace of Versailles and Le Marias.

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Ethiopia’s tech startups are confident change is coming at just the right time

By Yinka Adegoke

Word that Ethiopia’s prime minister Abiy Ahmed is looking to loosen his country’s tight grip on strategic assets like its fast-growing airline and its long-term telecom monopoly has sparked interest from international investors and regional corporations.

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In Artificial Intelligence, Young Ethiopians Eye a Fertile Future

By: Thomas Lewton and Alice McCool

I DON’T think Homo sapiens-type people will exist in 10 or 20 years’ time,” Getnet Assefa, 31, speculates as he gazes into the reconstructed eye sockets of Lucy, one of the oldest and most famous hominid skeletons known, at the National Museum of Ethiopia. “Slowly the biological species will disappear and then we will become a fully synthetic species,” Assefa says.

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Beauty and the Beast: Hong Kong in Black and White

By: Hruy Tsegaye

It’s like your first love relationship. There are some aspects you want to forget and some to cherish. This is almost universal for those who are lucky and blessed with a much better second, third, fourth love or for those who are not capable of letting their first one go.

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Ethiopia: U.S. Embassy Announces Solve IT! – A Nationwide Innovation Competition

The U.S. Embassy in Addis Ababa is sponsoring a nationwide innovation competition, “Solve IT!” for Ethiopian youth. “Solve IT!” promotes STEM, entrepreneurship and encourages a new generation of young Ethiopians to solve problems in their communities using technology, software and hardware. The competition is implemented by the U.S. Embassy in collaboration with partners iCog Labs and Humanity+.

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How Decentralized AI Can Change the Lives of Millions

By: Hruy Tsegaye

For thousands of years, social inequality has been arguably the most important question in need of an immediate answer. Ironically the question that needs an immediate answer has been with us, unanswered, since the dawn of history. It is one of the major causes of humanity’s integral problems like war, crime, disease, racism, irrationality, etc. Name the problem and you will find inequality either at the root of it, or the fertilizer.

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