AI and the Green Economy in Africa
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly gaining momentum across the globe with industries and governments increasingly making significant investments toward this global phenomenon. Now more than ever, emerging market economies such as AI need to seriously consider the impacts their social and economic progress will have on the natural environment. Today, climate change, loss of biodiversity, water shortages and food security are the most pressing challenges that Africa and the globe are faced with.
In this context as African entrepreneurs we are looking at the role that AI is playing in the natural environment and more specifically in the context of entrepreneurial development in Africa. Bill Gates once said that the African entrepreneurs driving startup booms in Johannesburg, Lagos, and Nairobi are the same age as when he founded Microsoft in the early 80s, and the thousands of businesses they’re creating are already changing lives across the continent. “The potential will only grow as the digital revolution brings more advances in artificial intelligence and robotics”, he said this at the annual Nelson Mandela lecture in 2016. The 4th Industrial Revolution is perhaps probably closer to the green economy than what was initially predicted by some pundits.
Agriculture
Agriculture represents 70% of the world’s water extraction. The Green Economy cuts across all economic sectors, including Agriculture. With more than 60% of its 1.2 billion people living in rural areas, Africa’s economy is inherently dependent on agriculture. More than 32% of the continent’s gross domestic product comes from the sector. Farming is the primary source of food and income for Africans and provides up to 60 percent of all jobs on the continent.
We need advances to make agriculture far more productive. With climate change leading to more severe weather, doing more of the same will not be good enough. There is a huge need to start innovating. Even though we are already seeing the adoption of drone technology being used by farmers, there are other opportunities to introduce a series of innovation along the agricultural value chain, i.e from farm to market. These include predictive analytics, satellite imaging and agricultural robots.
It’s been identified by AI researchers in the US that the direct impact of improvements in weather forecasting may seem to be that it simply makes vacation planning easier, but even the smallest advancement in predicting the weather can produce massive improvements for businesses and governments in this sector. More accurate weather forecasting allows farmers to make critical decisions about planting and harvesting.
Energy
Businesses that operate in Africa work with much higher operational costs than their counterparts elsewhere — this is not only true for business in power heavy sectors but also for general businesses such as banks and supermarkets. Energy is a disproportionately large expense for business in Africa and currently presents the biggest investment opportunity for alternative energy options that will offset the environmental impacts of coal and diesel generators. As a matter of fact organisation’s such as Bill Gates’ Microsoft Corporation , are making advances towards solving global climate issues using AI in areas such as smart grids, cloud technologies to improve resource efficiencies. There is a huge role to be played by the new age African entrepreneurs in this field
Infrastructure
The adoption of AI concepts such as Building Information Modelling (BIM) and Virtual Reality (VR) in Africa are found in large scale infrastructure development projects in mining and the construction industries in Africa. In the competitive construction industry most projects are designed in BIM today and this enables for the integration of AI in the form of digital tool when communicating projects: Virtual Reality (VR) and related tools like Augmented and Mixed Reality. Concepts such as VR enable multidisciplinary construction project team to communicate in a new-age language of ‘seeing is believing’, whilst ensuring efficiencies in the design process. in the mining industry early adopters already using 3D simulated environment (via VR technologies) that create virtual mining conditions and scenarios such as rock falls , machine fire, that immerse users in the mining experience to create a better understanding of how the industry can improve efficiency, health and safety standards. These applications are slowly being adopted by the training institutions to educate industry and the future mining professionals.
Transport
Transport is perhaps where AI is creating the biggest buzz at the moment with the arrival of the Autonomous Self-driving car. From Tesla to Google to Uber, the Self-driving cars will change the face of transport as we have come to know it.
As a matter of fact AI is already playing a role in freight transport by making shipping easier and safer. Utilities can better make decisions about their capacity needs during heat waves or large rainfalls. As we recently saw with the hurricanes and extreme floods taking place over the past few years, it allows governments and businesses to better prepare their responses to natural disasters that impact the lives of millions. We are also seeing a greater adoption of autonomous vehicles.
Some of these AI technologies have been able to play a role in helping the global green economy respond to climate change either mitigation or adaptation.
Our main role as African entrepreneurs would be to guide the adoption of AI in our respective green economies in Africa. In fact as entrepreneurs we should be championing AI by creating our own AI hubs similar to those taking shape across the rest of the globe.
“At the very moment as Africa is poised to make its mark on the global economy, the continent will be one of the worst affected by climate change. We need strong commitments and urgent action to mitigate the impact, and to assist countries to survive and develop in a context of climate change and extreme weather patterns. Adaptation and mitigation are going to be central to the future development of the continent”
Barack Obama, former president of United States of America
Green Building Design Group (GreenBDG) is the partner of choice in the green economy in Africa.We are experts in the Green Economy with over 40 years combined team experience namely through:
Driving and Influencing Policy Implementation through direct access to the construction and manufacturing regulatory bodies, provincial and municipal governments
Business engagement support and integrated skills transfer programmes. These programmes support the creation of jobs in the green economy industry value chains in Africa.
Founding member of the African Cleantechnology Network (ACN).
