In 2013, IBM Research opened its first African office in Nairobi; it added another in Johannesburg, South Africa, in 2016. Earlier this year Google opened a new AI lab in Accra, Ghana, and next year ICLR, a major AI research conference, will host its event in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Despite the odds, the African machine-learning community has blossomed over the last few years. The shift is a positive one for the field, which has suffered from a lack of diversity and, in many ways, a detachment from the real world. Many of the academic and corporate research labs that dominate AI research are concentrated in wealthy bubbles of innovation like Silicon Valley and China’s Zhongguancun in Beijing. That limited purview shows in the scope of the products these hubs create. Africa, on the other hand, might offer a context with which AI can return to its original promise: creating technology that tackles pressing global challenges like hunger, poverty, and disease. (Source: www.technologyreview.com)
How can Somalia start playing a role in this field?
