Rwanda's AI-Powered Drones are Transforming Emergency Medicine
When AI Works for Africa
We have discussed several times in this newsletter about AI in Africa and how it needs to be profitable, useful and functional.
Last week, I bumped into a perfect example of what problems AI can solve in Africa: delivering life-saving medicine to remote areas, a task now handled by autonomous drones in Rwanda.
This is what it means to customize AI for the African market. It is not glamorous, but it sure is useful.
What’s more interesting is that someone outside the continent might not consider this a scalable or viable use case because they have not lived the reality of Africa. In most Western countries, they have functional emergency systems.
Wherever you are in the country, you can call 911 in an emergency (or the equivalent, depending on the country) and fire trucks and ambulances respond within minutes. In Kenya, unless it is a road accident, you have to pay for the ambulance.
Wait, that is not even it. In case of an emergency, first you call around to find out which hospital in your area has a reliable ambulance. Then, you either call someone who works at that hospital or if they have a presence online, you find the phone number and request the ambulance’s contact.
Sometimes, the driver of the ambulance will not answer or they will answer and tell you, “ni usiku, piga asubuhi.” 😂🤦♀️ That means, call in the morning, it is too late right now.
If you luck out and the driver has no problem coming to you in the middle of the night, be prepared to fuel the ambulance, also known as a bribe (yes, I have seen all these scenarios play out in real life).
You think that is bad, but at least it is an option in urban areas. In rural areas, forget about it.
The story is the same for most African countries, and as such, a solution like this is revolutionary.
When interviewed, Pier Kaitan, the GM of Zipline Rwanda, said the poor roads and rough terrain once made the deliveries of life-saving medical supplies painfully slow or impossible.
So, for those of you (us) in this space, take this as inspiration to keep working on your AI solutions for Africa, even when they sound uncool. Because Africa cannot imitate the US, EU, China and the other rich countries when it comes to implementing AI.
Customization is the name of the game.
Tonee Ndung’u talking about:
AI in Africa Must Be Functional, Profitable & Useful
Today, I wanted to share this video that’s been stuck in my mind for weeks.
what it means for AI to be useful and functional.
Thanks for reading Africa: Not an Afterthought.
Leading the conversation on how Africa can leverage TECH, TRADE(AfCFTA), REGIONAL INTEGRATION and PANAFRICANISM to build a continent that’s Not An Afterthought.
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