The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has awarded accolades to four groundbreaking projects from Nigeria, designating them as winners of its recent AI solutions award.
These projects stand out among nearly 50 grant recipients who are diligently crafting AI-driven solutions to address critical global health and development challenges within their communities. These innovations leverage AI-enabled large language models (LLMs) to pioneer transformative changes in diverse sectors.
Guided by a mission to alleviate global disparities, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation issued a call for proposals directed at researchers and innovators hailing from low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). The foundation recognizes the potential of AI-driven LLM technology to tackle formidable health and development issues. To realize this potential, the active participation of researchers from LMICs in the design, application, and testing of this evolving technology is vital.
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Advancements in technology often lead to uneven benefits due to existing patterns of discrimination, inequality, and bias,” noted Juliana Rotich, co-founder of iHub, an incubator for technology entrepreneurs in Nairobi. Rotich, who has agreed to serve on the foundation’s new AI Ethics and Safety Advisory committee, emphasized the importance of responsible AI development. She stressed that AI solutions must be locally inspired, developed ethically, and address the needs of end users.
A Global Initiative for Change
Bill Gates himself revealed that the foundation received a staggering 1,300 proposals, with over 80% originating from LMICs. From this vast pool of ideas, approximately 50 projects were selected from 17 LMICs, aligning with the foundation’s objective of nurturing a global innovation ecosystem in areas where its impact can be most profound.
Each chosen project will receive funding of up to US$100,000, amounting to a total of US$5 million in grants.
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Nigerian Pioneers of AI for Social Impact
Among the celebrated projects are four from Nigeria, showcasing the country’s dedication to harnessing AI for positive change:
- Integration of a Large Language Model (LLM) for Women Centered Care (Lagos): Nneka Mobisson of mDoc Healthcare plans to enhance their virtual self-care coaching chatbot, Kem, with ChatGPT-4. This integration aims to improve the chatbot’s accuracy and its capacity to provide evidence-based information to low-income women of reproductive age in Nigeria.
- A Large Language Model (LLM) Tool to Support Frontline Health Workers in Low-Resource Settings (Kano): Nirmal Ravi of EHA Clinics Ltd. will develop and test scalable methods for deploying LLMs, such as ChatGPT-4, to offer “second opinions” to community health workers (CHEWs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
- Leveraging a Large Language Model (LLM) for Financial Inclusion (Lagos): Olubayo Adekanmbi of Data Science Nigeria will pioneer a multilingual, voice-based chatbot that simplifies complex financial concepts and provides tailored financial support to informal traders, women business owners, and smallholder farmers in Nigeria.
- AI for Education Delivery: Adaptive Learning Content for Rural Students (Lagos): Chinazo Anebelundu of DSN Ai Innovations Limited intends to create a STEM-focused multimedia learning platform utilizing GPT and DeepBrain text-to-video AI. This platform is designed to engage rural students and enhance their understanding of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics subjects.
These innovative projects underscore Nigeria’s commitment to harnessing AI for social impact, while also contributing to the foundation’s overarching mission of addressing global challenges with technology-driven solutions.