Liberia Cannot Afford to be a Late Adopter of Artificial Intelligence (AI)
By: Dr. Darren Wilkins (DWilkins@SaharaTeck.Com | Tel: 0777129092/0886703789)
Last week at the invitation of the organizers, I spoke at the Monrovia Tech Summit which was held at the Monrovia City Hall. A few hours after the event I posted on my Facebook page that, “much of my ‘extemporaneous’ speech dwelled on Artificial Intelligence; how it is transforming the world, and how it will impact Liberia.” To my surprise, the speech was received with more enthusiasm from both the participants at the summit and those who responded to my Facebook post.
This “unexpected enthusiasm” was also accompanied by the quintessential pessimism that the lack of political will, and the lack of bare minimum requirements for the adoption of AI, would make the advent of AI in Liberia, impossible. But I was not perturbed by the crowd’s pessimism because I was familiar with it. A few years ago, when I wrote my first book, “A Digital Liberia”, the prognostications made in that book seemed impossible, to many Liberians. For example, I prognosticated that the University of Liberia would implement an online learning platform to give students alternative access to teaching and learning. That prognostication was criticized because the critics felt the infrastructure was not in place. They were thinking about the present, and I was thinking about the future.
Fast forward to 2020, we developed the University’s online learning platform which is being used to supplement the traditional learning process. Today, the UL is a hybrid institution combining both online and on-campus teaching and learning.
I also prognosticated that Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) would either be our primary or secondary means of accessing finances stored in banks. Today, many Liberians and outsiders are depending on ATMs for their salaries, etc. So, I am not perturbed by the pessimism of the participants because it is simply déjà vu all over again.
Considering the time allotted at the summit, I was unable to provide more details about AI and how it will be adopted and integrated into the Liberian society holistically. Therefore, I have chosen this medium to provide those details regarding a strategic approach toward AI adoption and integration in Liberia.
Artificial intelligence or AI is defined as the automation of activities associated with human thinking such as decision-making, problem-solving, and learning. I sometimes define it as a computer’s ability to mimic human intelligence. AI is not a novel topic or phenomenon. It has been around since the 50s at which time the term was coined. It regained interest a few years ago and has proven to be as revolutionary and disruptive as the Internet, Windows operating system, and Mobile phones.
For the past two years, we’ve been studying the field of Artificial Intelligence, and making vehement efforts to gain insight into how AI can be adopted and integrated into the Liberian economy sooner than later. This way, we can move away from the traditional “late adopter” label we occupy on the global spectrum.
Our efforts have been supported by many activities including our presence on the AI-Connect Global Team, formed by the US State Department and Atlantic Council. From the insight garnered, we can provide a few ways to adopt AI sooner and integrate it into our society for economic development. What follows are six critical approaches to AI adoption in Liberia. This is not an exhaustive list, however, it provides a starting point for the achievement of our goal.
First, we need to create awareness of AI. Next, we need to build institutional capacity, then we develop governing instruments (policies and regulations) to guide the development and use of AI. Next, we build the necessary infrastructure, then we create local content, and finally, we provide incentives for AI to be used in certain areas. Now, let me deal with each approach in detail.
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- CREATE AI AWARENESS: The first approach is to do what we are doing now, creating awareness. Creating awareness for AI will garner interest and support for AI adoption.
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- BUILD INSTITUTIONAL CAPACITY: The second approach is to build institutional capacity. Building the capacity of young Liberians to develop and manage our own AI systems is key to leapfrogging our economic development. We will need our colleges and universities to have AI programs and emulate the likes of other universities that have made AI a required course. We will need AI innovation centers and other platforms where young men and women can study and develop AI systems.
We will need to do several other things to build capacity. Some of these include:
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- Establish an AI research center: Liberia could set up a research center focused on AI to promote research and development of AI technologies. The center could collaborate with universities and research institutions in other countries to stay up to date with the latest AI trends and developments.
a. Develop an AI talent pool: Liberia could train and develop a skilled AI workforce to build and deploy AI solutions in the country. This could involve setting up AI training programs at universities or partnering with organizations that offer AI training.
b. Citadels of learning should be adequately funded with more focus on bioinformatics, data science, computational biology, genomics, and applied mathematics.
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- TACKLE GOVERNANCE ISSUES: We will need new governance instruments that will provide the legal and regulatory framework on which these new AI systems are built and managed. The current and general unwillingness of our policymakers and regulators, to acknowledge that something needs to be done about our existing policies and regulations continue to stifle, stagnate and strangulate our ICT sector. This needs to change.
We need to think about adopting a problem-driven approach where local needs and problems are contextualized into AI policy formulation rather than a blanket ‘copy-and-paste’ practice that has no contextual relevance to our country or situation and has limited the advancement of development policies in Liberia. A problem-driven approach would help us to formulate robust AI policies that are relevant to our unique circumstances.
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- BUILD INFRASTRUCTURE: Another major factor limiting the speed of development of ICT in Liberia, which is also a potential impediment to AI adoption in Liberia, is the lack of the requisite infrastructure. Inadequate infrastructure evident by low Internet penetration, the widespread inaccessibility to electricity across the country, and sociocultural factors has stifled the adoption of technology in Liberia for years, making it difficult to execute and sustain digital approaches in different sectors of the economy.
We have already made some progress in this area and there are still more strides being made. We have the ACE Submarine cable, and now there is talk about a second submarine cable to serve as a redundancy and to increase the speed or access to the internet. Liberia Electricity has been doing well in recent times in addition to electricity being supplied through a partnership with other countries in West Africa. The C-Square metropolitan network is also available to increase access to high-speed internet.
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- ENCOURAGE LOCAL CONTENT DEVELOPMENT: Some solutions are available off the shelf and require less time to deploy into healthcare, but complex health problems need to have custom-built AI solutions.
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- PROMOTE AI STARTUPS: Liberia could support the development of AI startups by providing funding and other resources. This could help to create a thriving AI ecosystem in the country and attract.
Finally, there is tremendous promise in the possibilities that AI offers in transforming and improving Liberia’s economy. Liberia needs to leverage the strides made in the ICT sector to promote the development and use of AI.
That’s it, until next week,
Carpe diem