He is nicknamed the African Steve Jobs. Alain Capo-Chichi, in his factory in Grand Bassam, Côte d’Ivoire, conceptualized and locally manufactured the first accessible African smartphone with more than 50 African languages, including 17 Ivorian dialects, integrated via Artificial Intelligence (AI). This is to give access to the smartphone to the majority of illiterate Africans who do not speak a language other than that of the village. “Why should this handicap them from doing business, from cultivating themselves or simply from communicating more easily? The smartphone is a revolution of our time, it had to be accessible to as many people as possible,” he explains. Its superphone called “Open G” born in July 2022, is 100% usable by voice command, even able to anticipate the needs of its user. Smartphone, it integrates several innovations (intelligent assistant, mini applications, gamification and interactions with its environment).
The smartphone is a revolution of our time, it had to be accessible to as many people as possible
The idea, he had it inspired by his own parents. “They are very intelligent people, very resourceful, but who could neither read nor write. I thought of them first. Unfortunately, to date it is too late, but I dare not imagine what they could have done with such a tool in their hands: wonders! « . Alain Capo Chichi, now assistant professor of Universities in Computer Engineering, Doctor of Information and Communication Sciences from the University of Paris 8, is also an associate of the UNESCO Chair in Tics at the University of Bordeaux. , is above all an ambitious creative.
Best young entrepreneur in the field of innovation…in 2010
An early genius inventor, it was in 1998, at the age of only 20, that he launched the initial CERCO project, which in 2007 became an international group with 70 high schools and 5 university institutes between Benin, Mali, Ivory Coast and France. For his latest innovation, he won the World Literacy Awards 2023 at the 5th World Literacy Summit last April in London. But its work has already been praised much earlier with the launch of the “Internet Bus” (training sessions and access to wifi via a bus) and the first computer assembly factory in Africa. the West. In 2010, he was named by ECOWAS as the best young entrepreneur in the field of innovation and in 2005 among the 10 most remarkable young people in the world.
We have to build locally. I have always known, Africa is the future of the world. AI has facilitated and will continue to transform the lives of Africans
If “Open G” is a technological success, it is also an example of African industrial construction. “The phone is 100% African, therefore conceptualized and built locally.” The Cerco du Béninois group is a company under Ivorian law, located in the information and biotechnology village (VITIB), in the industrial free zone of Grand-Bassam, in Ivory Coast. It has a superphone and computer assembly line with a capacity of 4,000 units per day.
“We have to build locally, because I have always known, Africa is the future of the world. AI has facilitated and will continue to transform the lives of Africans, we must no longer look to the North, Europe is the past… With AI, Africans can catch up and even go even further », he enthuses.
