Mustapha Zaouini : “AI gives us opportunity to create our own content, our own values”
Mustapha Zaouini, Chief Executive Officer of startup Studio Fliptin in South Africa and Dubai, Entrepreneur in Residence for the Government of Madagascar as part of a national startup incubation program, has just returned to his native Morocco to develop his company 'AI in Africa' to promote African-made artificial intelligence. He believes that Africa must play its part in the global market, while defending its own values and cultures.
« AI in Africa’ is an organization that aims to influence young people to create their own future. But building an inclusive future with AI is first and foremost about developing a growth mindset to create responsible AI. That’s the focus of our training programs, to put the human in AI.
From a regulatory perspective, this does not mean copying and pasting from the North. Above all, it means looking at the uniqueness of our needs, our cultures and our values, and seeing how we can move forward and develop our own rules and principles. AI gives us the opportunity to create and export our own content, our own values, and that’s the big difference.
We must not fall into AI colonialism in Africa. It’s up to us to create our own content and master our big data
Secondly, we must not be colonized by AI in Africa. It’s up to us to create our own content and control our big data, to be independent. This is an issue that concerns everyone. Certain big models are becoming lobbies, declaring in open letters the need to control AI and even make us more and more dependent. We are already dependent on some technologies. There are certainly a lot of elements in the AI value chain, and we can’t create a very big model on the continent at the moment, but maybe tomorrow. In any case, it will require sovereignty over our data and access to infrastructure for all.
We can develop African use cases such as hyper-localization in local dialects and customs. There are a huge number of dialects on our continent and this is an immediate opportunity when we talk about hyper-personalization. Also, it’s up to us to address the problem of illiteracy in Africa, we can use these technologies to do that, we have to come up with new solutions.
We can do it, and we’ve already done it. We have already introduced innovations in Africa that have been exported, such as mobile money. It’s only now that users in Europe and the United States have adopted the mobile payment behavior that we’ve been integrating since 2008. We have opportunities to seize. AI can be an amplifier, an accelerator, and it’s up to us to use it as such to export our services. And at the same time stay in Africa and keep our best skills here. I say to young people: stay here, work here, but access a global market.
For example, we just launched the Digital Nomade Africa program in Marrakech. It’s a program for digital entrepreneurs and freelancers. The aim is then to develop it in several key cities: Abidjan, Dakar, Lagos, Kigali, Johannesburg… I invite anyone who is interested to join us, if you represent a city, a movement, a startup… Together we can promote our African principles and values.
But before we can regulate, we need to focus on raising awareness and educating people, and this education is available, accessible and free.
A community of informed, engaged and ethically guided individuals will play a central role in harnessing AI for a better African future. We must all be ambassadors and not be dependent on imposed information.
Our future is still in our hands. As I often say to young people, it’s your choice to be consumers or creators.
