Artificial Intelligence

A Sceptical Approach to the Future of AI and Emerging Technologies in Today’s Africa

By: Hruy Tsegaye

Nota bene:This is a chapter from an unpublished book written 2 years ago.

 

Probably, in the continent of Africa, the question of poverty is the supreme question in need of an immediate answer. The discussion of hi-tech within the continent seems extravagance; a great many of outsiders might share this view even though they are silent about it. Risking the snare of stating the obvious, yes, Africa has countless problems and the focus should be on the priorities.

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Futbol: The Beautiful Game

By Heldana Michael

Futbol! The prince of sports! A brain sport in this case. Where students sweat their brains to enable robots to play this great game.

The fourth RoboSoccer Cup was held between the days of August 16th and 17th at Kana Studio alongside Solve IT 2019. Although only three of the expected four teams showed up to the tournament, each of these teams was phenomenal in their respective games and gave the other team a run for their money. Our newest addition to the team was Bahir Dar University and the team proved to be an equally tough team to beat. Moreover, the members of this team were high school students coming from the university’s (Bahir Dar) STEM center.
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Ethiopia’s tech startups are ready to run the world, but the internet keeps getting blocked

By Abdi Latif Dahir

Getnet Assefa shuffled uneasily in his office seat and wondered aloud why he couldn’t connect to the internet on his laptop.

It was mid-morning on Tuesday (June 11), and even though he didn’t know it yet, it was the beginning of the latest days-long internet cutoff. Authorities in Ethiopia disrupted connectivity nationwide to prevent students from cheating in national exams. Social media platforms like WhatsApp and Telegram were restricted, SMS text messaging disabled, leaving banks, businesses and tech startups left in a quandary.

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Coder by age 10, software developer by 19: Meet Ethiopian teen tech entrepreneur Betelhem Dessie

By Tess Thomas

Betelhem is working to equip girls with the skills they need to work in their country’s growing tech industry.

When Betelhem Dessie’s father didn’t have time to celebrate her 9th birthday, she decided to become a tech entrepreneur and pay for a celebration herself.

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The city where innovation is driven By necessity

By Thomas Lewton

“I am young, ambitious and ready to transform my country, Ethiopia,” Selam Wondim announces to a conference room packed with high-profile executives and politicians in one of Addis Ababa’s most prestigious hotels. Read More

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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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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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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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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AI and Ethiopia

By: Yoseph Berhanu

One can easily argue humanity’s primary mission on earth is to learn, discover what is hidden, and make life a little bit easier than it was before. Moreover, sharing of what
one has learned has been at the heart of this learning endeavor.

The advent of electronic computer and the Internet has helped in both the discovery and sharing efforts significantly. It has also changed the way people acquire, analyze and disseminate information. Starting from the use of search-engines to fully automated class rooms experiences and even artificial intelligence tutors; the teaching learning world has changed considerably.

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