This pilot is focused on the AI value chain of green computing, talent, and data within local AI ecosystems in energy, agriculture, health, water, education and training, and infrastructure.
It seeks to discover and scale creative partnership models, leveraging lessons from ongoing efforts while addressing critical questions about data licensing, community ownership, and the role of the private sector in creating public goods and value.
Startups in Africa are already using digitized language data to build AI translation tools and (small) language models in key sectors. In the health sector for example, language models are improving access to information, such as on maternal health. In the agriculture sector, language models are enabling farmers to make informed decisions based on near real-time market data. And in finance, these tools are facilitating access to financial services in local languages.
While AI is becoming increasingly common, many AI solutions, including language models and speech recognition applications, are not available or sufficiently secure in African languages. This results in limited opportunities for sustainable industrial development, innovations, and local AI markets. The pilot acknowledges the ongoing efforts of various stakeholders, such as the AI4Development Donor group, as well as AI communities like Masakane, AfriLabs, and local universities, in digitizing and preserving local languages and will aim to learn from and with them as part of this programme.
Transforming opportunities through AI and creating a more abundant future for everyone will require partnerships that are focused on public interest for digitizing local languages. Strengthening digital ecosystems across Africa creates the transformative opportunity to drive economic growth and empower the continent to lead in innovation while preserving its rich cultural heritage.
Through the AI Hub for Sustainable Development Co-Design, this pilot seeks to engage with the private sector and other stakeholders to identify areas and opportunities to partner, working with the next generation of African AI entrepreneurs, innovators, and leaders, to ensure that Africa's digital future is both equal and prosperous.
The pilot is a four-month virtual learning space as part of the co-design of the AI Hub for Sustainable Development. It is designed to assess effective, ethical, and necessary partnerships to accelerate the development and adoption of Language AI technologies for sustainable local innovations.
This call for expressions of interest invites local, regional, and global partners to learn together and contribute to the design of the AI Hub for Sustainable Development. The learning questions we anticipate to cover include, but are not limited to:
How can we unlock and digitize African language datasets at scale? What innovative approaches exist?
How can we enable community ownership models and public good stewardship of language data? What models currently exist, how can we build on them as best practices, and what are the challenges?
What kinds of partnerships can drive the responsible and scalable integration of African languages, and under-resourced languages more broadly, in large language models (LLMs) and other AI technologies?
What principles should private sector Language AI technologies adopt to respect public value and ownership?
What is the role of under-resourced languages in start-up and industrial acceleration?
What are use cases for Language AI in areas of energy, agriculture, health, water, education and training, and infrastructure?
Following the call for expressions of interest, UNDP will work to facilitate conversations with participating organizations around the learning questions. Participating organizations will have an opportunity to access networks, potential funding for pilots, and other resources that this co-design phase will convene through interested partners.
