App/Software

Olubayo Adekanmbi of Data Science Nigeria in Nigeria will develop a multilingual, voice-based chatbot to demystify complex financial concepts and provide customized financial support to informal traders, women business owners, and smallholder farmers in Nigeria. These groups are often disadvantaged due to their low income and literacy and are historically underserved by conventional financial systems. They will create a chatbot capable of recording transactions from verbal inputs, such as "I bought four oranges at N50 naira," and answering financial questions.

Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende of Makerere University in Uganda will leverage ChatGPT to provide tailored support to smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa in their local languages. These smallholder farmers contribute up to 69% of household incomes, but they are vulnerable to the devastating effects of crop diseases and pests and lack the timely support required to combat such challenges. Digital technologies have been developed to help but they cover a limited number of crop types and languages.

Nirmal Ravi of EHA Clinics Ltd. in Nigeria will develop and test scalable and cost-effective ways to use large language models (LLMs) such as ChatGPT-4 to provide “second opinions” for community health workers (CHEWs) in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs). These second opinions would mirror what a reviewing physician might advise the provider in question after seeing or hearing their initial report.

Nneka Mobisson of mDoc Healthcare in Nigeria will integrate ChatGPT-4 into their chatbot, Kem, which provides virtual self-care coaching for low-income women of reproductive age in Nigeria, to improve its accuracy and capacity to respond to queries with evidence-based information. The burden of maternal deaths in Nigeria remains inequitably high with many risks encountered even before conception, highlighting the importance of supporting self-care.

Moinul Haque Chowdhury of CMED Health Limited in Bangladesh will integrate a multilingual AI engine into their existing digital healthcare platform, SuSastho, to produce a chatbot that provides secure access to sexual, reproductive, and mental health care for adolescents. Bangladesh has the highest adolescent pregnancy rates globally, and 16-18% of its adolescents suffer from mental disorders; however, little to no sexual, reproductive, or mental health care is available. They will use an open-source language model that operates in multiple languages, including Bangla.

Daphne Ngunjiri of Access Afya in Kenya will integrate ChatGPT into a virtual clinic application, mDaktari, to support clinicians and better respond to patient inquiries. Poor quality healthcare results in 5.7 million deaths in low- and middle-income countries, emphasizing the need to increase healthcare quality as well as accessibility. Their mDaktari platform combines a digital and physical healthcare network, telemedicine, and localized patient health data to support patients and clinicians in low-income communities from diagnosis to treatment.

Sophie Pascoe of Wits Health Consortium (Pty) Limited in South Africa, with support from the organizations, AUDERE in the U.S. and the Centre for HIV and AIDS Prevention Studies (CHAPS) in South Africa, will develop a Large Language Model (LLM)-based application, Your Choice, that interacts with individuals in a human-like way to respectfully obtain their sexual history and improve the accuracy of HIV risk assessments to control the epidemic in South Africa.

Chinazo Anebelundu of DSN Ai Innovations Limited in Nigeria will develop a Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM)-focused multimedia learning platform by leveraging GPT and DeepBrain text-to-video AI tailored to rural students to increase their engagement. Nigeria has an estimated 18.5 million students out of school, a population that can potentially be reached through this more engaging and personalized modality. This platform will integrate local contexts and nuances to enhance student comprehension of STEM subjects.

Tonee Ndungu of Kytabu Company Ltd. in Kenya will develop a comprehensive AI-powered mobile application, SOMANASI (derived from the Swahili words meaning "learn together") to provide personalized education to every student in Kenya. Kenya suffers from widespread educational inequities with many students failing to receive individualized attention. The application will harness ChatGPT-4 and act as an intelligent virtual tutor that delivers tailored content, adaptive learning experiences, and interactive guidance.

Floris Sonnemans of Degas Ghana Limited in Ghana will apply AI technology to support African smallholder farmers to implement more climate-adaptive and regenerative agricultural (RA) techniques, such as crop diversification, and scale climate action across the continent. Africa only contributes 3.8% of global greenhouse gas emissions but experiences the harshest impacts, particularly on food production. However, protective RA techniques are relatively new and challenging to adopt, and there are not enough field agents to support farmers and respond to queries.