TWO of the country’s revered sons, Strive Masiyiwa and James Manyika, will next month co-chair an inaugural summit on artificial intelligence (AI).
The Global AI Summit on Africa will run from April 3 to 4 in Kigali, Rwanda.
The summit will be hosted by Rwanda’s Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and that country’s ICT & Innovation ministry, in collaboration with the World Economic Forum under the theme, AI and Africa’s Demographic Dividend: Reimagining Economic Opportunities for Africa’s Workforce.
This is a powerful event amid a race as countries seek to leverage on AI for growth and development.
A study by McKinsey estimates that Generative AI could increase productivity by 40% and add between US$2,2 trillion to US$4,4 trillion a year to the global economy.
If Africa can recoup 5% of this opportunity, generative AI could add between US$110 to US$220 billion to Africa's gross domestic product a year, thus the economic benefit will be very high.
That the organisers chose Masiyiwa and Manyika as co-chairs of the summit speaks volumes about our inability to harness the talents of locals found in all corners of the globe.
Manyika is senior vice-president of Google and Alphabet president for Research, Labs, Tech & Society.
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He is an authority and was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in AI.
Masiyiwa is a tech entrepreneur and a thought leader in AI.
His infrastructure and digital services provider, Cassava Technologies, has launched an AI unit — Cassava AI — which seeks to bring AI capacity to markets in Africa, the Middle East and Latin America, where Cassava Technologies operates.
The duo is respected on the continent and abroad and has been eager to share its thoughts on the AI revolution, tipped to transform the world, Africa included.
For a country that wants to benefit from AI, we have not tapped into the wisdom of the two reputable executives.
We have no appetite to recognise our talents. Despite being feted with awards elsewhere, Masiyiwa was only recognised by government at ICT awards last year.
Have we become so busy that we ignore the good work our people are doing?
What are the bureaucrats doing in offices if they are not speaking the language of AI?
Have they joined the politicians who are burning the midnight oil to push the 2030 agenda?
There are tens of Zimbabwean executives who are transforming other countries because we have not offered them a conducive environment to thrive.
They are aware of the experiences of banker Nkosana Moyo who took a gamble by joining Cabinet as one of the technocrats. He left in a huff and resigned while outside the country’s borders. Moyo has been excelling, becoming vice-president and chief operating officer at the African Development Bank.
He founded the Mandela Institute for Development Studies, an Africa-wide think-tank that provides an inclusive platform for dialogue, information dissemination and networking.
We need a new thinking where we harness the expertise of the country’s nationals dotted across the globe if the country is to attain an upper-middle-income economic status by 2030.
