AI in Africa and Asia - we need to produce our own AI tools and here's how Develop AI will help
PLUS Trucks no longer need drivers
Last week I was at Radiodays Asia in Malaysia giving a workshop on “Leveraging AI for Podcasting” (thanks again to Public Media Alliance and Nessa McGann for making that happen). My workshop was (favourably) said to veer off into the philosophy around AI and media rather than strictly being about tools that people should be using. While apps like Otter.ai and Perplexity are being exposed as either immoral data hoards or copyright pirates we are left asking, particularly as the media in Africa and Asia, what we are going to do instead?
In response Develop AI is launching our AI Training Lab this week. This is a platform for newsrooms and content creators in Africa and Asia so they can seriously up-skill themselves, code their own applications, create revenue out of AI and share their AI knowledge in a way that they haven’t been able to until now. Let me sketch out what our new platform is going to mean…
First: a train the trainer program that benefits communities of all sizes
My first job was in magazines. And my second job was teaching people how to write for magazines. I have been training people in the media for decades and I have learnt that Develop AI can hugely accelerate the use of AI in African and Asian media (particularly rural communities) by offering to train trainers for free. In 2015 I started Citizen Justice Network which trained community paralegals to be radio journalists and the key takeaway from that venture was I should have equipped trainers in each of our areas (across South Africa and Kenya) to keep teaching the people around them when I wasn’t there. So, thanks to our AI Training Lab prominent people in cities and rural areas will be able to raise their hands and get free training by Develop AI. Then through our platform they will be able to arrange local trainings and spread the word. They will be able to charge whatever they think is appropriate for their area. We want our trainers to create revenue for themselves and we will take 10% to cover basic costs.
We will give our trainers all the materials and knowledge to conduct robust workshops that can span multiple days. And we will record all the trainings, harvest the insights and allow this information to build the next set of workshops. AI will be used to help create the materials and lessons in order to stay relevant and guide participants to where they want to go. We are going to help people identify problems and focus on how AI can solve them, including the illusive monetisation issue affecting so many newsrooms. The key is that every person that is trained through us will automatically become part of the Develop AI Community and the focus will be heavily on how to code and produce local applications. This leads me to the second pillar of the initiative…
Second: an AI marketplace for members to sell and test their applications
The 21st century is a world of online stores, but what I have discovered is that people are coding and creating various projects, but aren’t quite getting them to a shiny final stage where they are confident enough to sell them for big bucks. However, another thing I have discovered from travelling Africa and Asia and teaching AI is that a great deal of repetition is happening. So, the AI Training Lab will give those who have been trained by our trainers access to a marketplace where they can share, sell and test their AI applications. The true game changer will they will be able to advertise their aspirational AI models (like a model that translates a small African language) and ask other members to contribute for free or a fee. We want to give people the best chance to succeed so Develop AI won’t take a huge cut from the sales in this store, besides an admin fee (we aren’t out to gouge people like Apple). The goal of this is to empower newsrooms and content creators to code their own applications or support fellow journalists by licensing local software. This way we can track who is doing what, open up avenues for collaboration and make sure that there is no repetition.
Third: a glossary and resource of AI knowledge
A huge amount of feedback I received when teaching a range of broadcasters in Johannesburg a few months ago is that people want a handy resource where they can stay up to date with AI. Our AI Training Lab wiki and chatbot will give people the chance to learn everything that has gone through Develop AI since it started. This will be a shared AI knowledge commons for the global south. And, for a small fee, it will include daily AI lessons served to members over WhatsApp so they can stay up to date… as we know this stuff moves fast and you need to be learning every day to keep up.
Fourth: a forum to share ideas, thoughts and ambitions
It has been heartening to see the Develop AI WhatsApp group grow over the last year. However, we want to kick this up a notch and give people a forum to connect and discuss what is best for them and their organisations. This will be exclusive to members who have been part of one of our trainings. It will also inform us what needs to be covered in future workshops.
Fifth: a complete AI HealthCheck for your organisation
A topic I have become interested in (and I don’t think is talked about enough) is the use of “healthy” AI. We have become obsessed with the binary of if AI has been used or not in the creation of content. We should be asking if the AI used is ethical (or at least more ethical than others). We will equip our trainers to do a full audit of a local organisation and “cleanse” their AI inventory. Then we will plug them into our network so they can see what applications they can use from other local members or where they can create their own.
The goal of the AI Training Lab is to legitimately spread the use of AI across two continents and empower newsrooms to solve problems that may have been plaguing them for years. Importantly, we are going to put the power in their hands to be collaborative and to improve the media in general. And we want to encourage organisations to have a broad view of what they want to achieve with these new technologies, rather than just make more of the same content faster. I couldn’t be more excited. If you want to be part of this, become one of our new trainers or be a financial partner, please get in touch.
In the news…
Tests for driverless trucks have begun. The newsletter “Understanding AI” does a fantastic job of unpicking the history (and the millions of dollars that have already been spent).
What AI was used in creating this newsletter?
I used Midjourney for the pictures. The quality of a Midjourney pic is getting better, but the “intelligence” of the model seems to be waning, in terms of responding accurately to my prompts.
This week’s AI tool for people to use…
I couldn’t resist including our own AI Podcasting Tool in this section. Here is a demo of the tool in action. Develop AI is offering to create you a corporate podcast with the first month of weekly episodes included for just $95 (4 episodes of 20-25 minutes each). Create up to three hosts and the option for AI generated guests (which are clones of real people who have their exact personalities and voices). Just drop me a message to get started.
See you next week. All the best,
Develop Al is an innovative company that builds AI focused projects, reports on AI and provides training on how to use AI responsibly.
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