The marriage of Blockchain & Ai will drive Africa’s economic revolution.
Africa has for long, struggled with the problem of data. Now it has a unique opportunity to fuel its future by betting on modern technologies to build useful and measurable data that can drive her economic development agenda. Not just data, but reliable data that has integrity. Data is used in building statistics; statistics are useful for planning. Planning is what paves the way for success. In the cases, where some kind of data seemed to exist, they lack integrity. Therefore they cannot be put to any reasonable use. That is the problem with Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Uganda, Mozambique and all across Africa. Without mincing words, Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence are the two most disruptive emerging technologies of our time, with the potential to disrupt every industry available and with the ability to solve Africa’s data problem.
The decentralized system of blockchain technology is antithetical to the inherently centralized system of operation in use today, especially in most African countries. By employing a form of decentralized database architecture, the record and authentication of certain operations are contingent upon the agreement of several parties rather than a single authority. Artificial Intelligence, (AI for short), is an umbrella term for the various subsets of technological advancement being recorded in fields which are concerned with machines being able to act more independently and efficiently. It basically has to do with teaching computers how to analyse data for solving particular tasks through algorithms. This come down to data generation. But what is data if it has no integrity?
This is where Blockchain Technology comes to the rescue.
We must understand that with increasing data comes increasing confusion. This is the primary burden of Artificial Intelligence. How will those data be safe from adversarial attacks and manipulative tendencies of centralized authorities? Blockchain and AI are both extreme sides of modern technology spectrum: while one is fostering centralized intelligence on close data platforms, the other seeks to promote decentralized applications in an open-data environment. An intelligent marriage of the two techs will catalyze the long awaited economic renaissance across Africa.
Unfortunately most african leaders has been paying lip service to both tech, and in some cases, with daggers drawn against disruptive solution hovering in the space. To date, there has been no discernible regulatory trend or policy statement about the tech, whether favorable or unfavorable. It is often said that Africa’s “poverty gap is a technology gap.” A knowledge and education gap that has kept us on bended knees for centuries. Africa risk falling further behind, if it ignores the twin innovative technologies of Blockchain and Artificial Intelligence.
A successful marriage between Blockchain and Ai will bring decentralized Open Market for Data, Large-Scale Data Management Mechanism, Trustworthy AI Modeling and Predictions, and greater control over the Usage of Data and Models. For Africa, this will mean better results in predicting migration patterns,monitoring crop yields, detecting corruption, estimating poverty, learning about customers at the base of the economic pyramids. Indeed the opportunities are endless.
This one of the reason why Blockchain Nigeria User Group is organising “Abuja Blockchain & Ai Round-Table”. The aim is to explore the possibilities of economic development at the intersection of Blockchain and Ai, and the “low hanging” opportunities they present in the ecosystem. We will attempt to put key plays in the field on a round-table, so they can explain their understanding of advances in the technologies in focus. The event will also provide a huge opportunity for networking among different people working on different remote sensing techs, bid data, machine learning etc. Investor will also have the opportunity to identify viable projects and take advantage of their early stage funding needs.
It will also be an opportunity for career seekers to identify the new paths available in the emerging technology ecosystem. Since a lot of actionable insights will be coming out from the discussion segments, it will also be a great place for regulatory agencies to ganner useful leads that will enable them frame policies that will groom and boost the innovations as against policies that might stifle it. For software developers, getting to know different AI frameworks and APIs in addition to Blockchain development tools, (e.g IBM, Microsoft, Amazon, Apache and H2O) will enable them to learn new skills as the demand for knowledge in their respective fields grow.
Without doubt, AI and Blockchain could unlock new vistas in Africa’s healthcare sector, agriculture, finance and insurance…to mention a few. Technology innovations alone will not be able to do that. A concerted effort by governments and their agencies will be required. They need to break their silence and provide quality framework and regulations that will chart the path for a glorious future for its over-blotting population.
