What are you working on at the moment?
My name is Fernando Perini, I work for the international development research centre. I have been helping to build AI for development network and support the regional initiatives in the different regions to kind of catalyse AI for development across the Global South.
How do you perceive development and Artificial Intelligence?
AI has huge potentials and huge reasons for development. AI creates new opportunities for development and new challenges. The key issue is that many of the conditions, many of the requirements for inclusive AI deployment in Global South are missing. And this can generate even greater inequalities in the future.
That’s why AI and development need to work together. People that are thinking about implications of AI, working very closely with people that develop technology, implemented the technology, to really kind of make this revolution more inclusive and benefit everybody.
What is your blue sky project in Africa?
My blue sky project it the results of the discussions in these last two days. The plans that were put together, that really need to have a great number of PhDs coming from Africa, capacity building across the spectrum. We need to have a changing policy across Africa to enable an equal and inclusive AI ecosystem.
And you need to have close interaction among many actors, including university, private sector, development agencies, institutes, local communities, to really implement AI across the region at the very local level. It would demand resources, it would demand participation for everybody.