The East African: April 3, 2025

^{By Paulin Basinga & Evelyn Gitau}

Following the high-profile Al Action Summit in Paris, Africa's first Global Al Summit is underway in Kigali, underscoring the continent's growing leadership in shaping the future of artificial intelligence.

Al is redefining what's possible in health and development. Its rapid evolution continues to unlock real opportunities for progress. Just think: The same tech behind self-driving cars is now helping in the fight against malaria, powering apps that can identify disease-carrying mosquitoes from a single photo.

As health and development budgets tighten, perhaps the greatest opportunity Al offers is a chance to deliver faster, smarter, and more cost-effective tools, reducing inequity and driving economic growth in ways that were unimaginable just a few years ago.

In health, Al can support traditionally resource-intensive activities, like diagnosing rare diseases, flagging emerging outbreaks, and discovering new medicines. African universities and health leaders are also exploring it as a tool to strengthen medical education through Al-powered simulations and virtual patient actors that help train new doctors more effectively.

In agriculture, Al can help farmers improve crop yields by using models to predict the impact of climate variations. And in education, Al can help teachers and students alike, assisting with personalised tutoring or the rapid translation of materials into the right language. We're already seeing the impact. In West Africa, illiteracy among young people decreased by nearly 80 percent when they could learn in their own Bambara language.

But what inspires us the most isn't a new device or software-it's the innovators designing and using these tools to address some of the world's toughest challenges. The Global Al Summit is a reminder that Africa is home to many of those brilliant minds.

People like Nneka Mobisson, a trained paediatrician with an MBA and engineering degree, who channelled the grief of losing her father to a preventable health condition into a mission to deliver high-quality health coaching to people living with chronic diseases across Africa.

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