Zain Verjee, an executive fellow at Harvard University’s Digital Data and Design Institute, is a co-founder of an AI and communications consultancy and hosts the podcast series Embedded. In a discussion with Omar Ben Yedder, she explores the opportunities and challenges of AI and technological adoption in Africa, key topics at this year’s World Economic Forum in Davos.

Your deep dive into AI and cryptocurrency over the past year has been notable. What have you learned? What has captured your interest, both positively and negatively?

This year has been about learning for me. I’ve actively engaged with AI technologies and tools, as well as the world of cryptocurrency. My objective is to assimilate at least one percent of new knowledge each day, cherishing small victories and allowing myself to grasp the fundamentals before building from there.

While I don’t need to become a complete expert, achieving a 30 percent understanding feels adequate. I’ve also noticed that technology often intimidates women if it’s not their main field. I’m determined to break down those barriers because if I can comprehend and engage with new technologies, others can too.

A key realization is that AI is here to stay—those who ignore it will be left behind. In communications, I see how AI has transformed the sector, rapidly influencing writing, creativity, content generation, production, editing, and filmmaking. The balance in the landscape has significantly shifted.

I remain hopeful that innovation will make our lives easier, enhance our intelligence, and speed up our tasks. However, I approach these developments with caution, acknowledging the long road ahead in embedding ethics into AI, addressing dataset bias, and tackling essential legal and regulatory issues.

What surprised me is that skills in writing, linguistics, and empathy are more critical than just coding or taking machine learning courses. These human abilities will be indispensable as AI continues to evolve.

Do you envision African nations embracing new technologies, or is there a risk of falling behind due to the substantial financial resources needed to succeed in the AI landscape?

I’m quite optimistic about Africa. We’re actively engaging—not sitting back. Recently, we hosted a Bitcoin Africa crypto conference, where participants explored stable coins and various blockchain use cases across the continent. I’ve also acquired several NFTs created by African talent, demonstrating our active, albeit varied, engagement.

There is a steep learning curve, and we need to make cryptocurrency knowledge more accessible in Africa. Many are innovating AI solutions tailored to African conditions, focusing on language and datasets, and working to develop small language models that accommodate our continent’s unique diversity.

Cultural nuances are being woven into AI and datasets for accurate and relevant outputs. I strongly advocate for ownership of our datasets. Given our historical circumstances, we should not let our data—our current valuable resource—be sold to the West only to be repackaged, studied, and sold back to us at a profit. Therefore, managing our data and asserting data sovereignty is crucial.

We need to establish the infrastructure necessary to support our AI ecosystem, including renewable energy-powered data centers. Expanding our skills as individuals and as a continent will significantly benefit us.

Talent exists throughout the continent; we have coders, creators, product managers, designers, and engineers who are in search of opportunities.

We must also make responsible use of our resources. Encouraging collaboration and learning from one another while providing our creators the opportunity to offer solutions in transformative sectors like agriculture or health is vital.

Let’s not hesitate to embrace the profit motive. We aim to create a business ecosystem and marketplace where our creators can earn a living and thrive in emerging industries. Our leaders should prioritize innovation and support open ecosystems rather than imposing heavy regulations.

Throughout your career focused on media, your goal has been to reshape the narrative surrounding the continent, yet AI poses risks of reinforcing existing stereotypes. How can AI be harnessed for good, particularly with limited coverage of Africa?

The key is to create our own datasets and authentic African data through production, structuring, and labeling. Since leaving CNN, I’ve been advocating for owning our stories. We need to share impactful narratives about the continent that genuinely reflect its diversity and foster a strong media and storytelling industry.

While the essential principle remains unchanged, the advancement of technology requires us to shift our perspective—aligning our focus with emerging trends and anticipating rapid developments in artificial intelligence, where datasets will be central.

Though we may not compete directly with platforms like Google’s Gemini or Meta’s Llama, we can innovate through smaller language models and ecosystems tailored to our needs.

Our leaders must enhance their efforts in fostering learning ecosystems for the youth, creating new types of jobs. We should prioritize encouraging innovation rather than regulating it too early; let innovation thrive.

Importantly, I don’t want women or girls to be sidelined nor for the gender gap in technology to widen. It’s imperative to dismantle these obstacles. We need to boost female representation in technology and invest in their development.

What are the essential components missing in Africa that impede progress in AI?

Numerous challenges exist. Firstly, our foundational infrastructure is inadequate. Unreliable electricity is a significant hurdle. Other challenges include limited broadband access, high data costs, poor logistical frameworks, and insufficient distribution networks to effectively connect us. Additionally, there are few data centers and limited skills available. While these realities are challenging, they are not unmanageable.

So, what lies ahead? Human capital and the educational pipeline are pressing issues. There’s a noticeable gap between current learning on the continent and the fast-paced development of essential skills. It’s vital for our leaders to actively address this rather than waiting for international organizations or tech giants to dictate actions.

We must cultivate technical training programs focused on AI and robotics, promoting widespread digital literacy from the ground up.

Risk-taking is limited across the continent, and the venture capital ecosystem is underdeveloped. While we often mention the “Silicon Savannah,” this vision remains unrealized. To genuinely build our industries, particularly in creative cultural sectors, we need a robust capital ecosystem.

We must nurture systems capable of producing authentic African imagery and video. Although I can utilize tools like Sora and Midjourney, their results sometimes misrepresent the diverse facial characteristics of Kenyans, Nigerians, Ethiopians, and Rwandans, as they are influenced by Western datasets and perspectives on blackness.

I’ve also pointed out that regulatory environments can stifle innovation. Variations in regulations between countries lead to missed opportunities for regional collaboration, often resulting in unnecessary competition. The region offers immense economic potential.

Furthermore, there is inadequate intellectual property protection for innovators, product managers, and others looking to develop new products on the continent. Solutions imported from the West often fail to address our unique challenges, yet these are typically the solutions we adopt, posing a significant dilemma.

We genuinely need to concentrate on creating products specifically designed to solve African challenges, which involves establishing multidisciplinary product labs.

This year’s theme is ‘Davos Collaboration is the New Intelligent Age.’ Do you anticipate more collaboration or division between affluent and less fortunate nations?

Is Davos simply a gathering of private jets, contributing to an enormous carbon footprint? The insulated elite discussing the plight of the less fortunate can no longer be accepted—it epitomizes inequality.

AI acts as a great equalizer, offering opportunities to bridge the divide between rich and poor. It democratizes access to knowledge and resources for those with connectivity.

Open-source models and datasets present pathways for collaborative research and development, which is promising. Lambda 3 is a good example of this.

I believe that discussions around policy choices, international regulations, ethical considerations, and frameworks will be front and center at Davos. If I were to emphasize one crucial issue, it would be the urgent need to bridge the knowledge gap between AI-enabled populations and those who are not—an disparity that could rapidly widen. We must work to transform the dynamics of power.