Company or Institution

The AI solution is a collaboration between the University of Namibia and City for Scientific Research and Technological Applications (SRTA-City), Egypt

Industry

Other

Website

https://www.linkedin.com/company/responsible-human-centered-ai-design-in-africa-rhai-africa/

Country

Namibia

Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)

General description of the AI solution

Growth in research and development of AI in Africa is evident. Africa will benefit from the adoption of AI in tackling socioeconomic challenges. However, irresponsible design and use of AI could cause harm to people’s human rights and social life. In Africa, awareness and adoption of responsible AI are growing at a very slow pace. Therefore, the Responsible Human-centered AI Design in Africa (RHAI-AFRICA) project aims to design and implement an Afro-centric Human-Centered AI educational platform to provide theoretical and practical support to the Responsible AI ecosystem in Africa. That includes entrepreneurs, innovators, academicians, students, and startups in Africa. More importantly, the platform will support communities and potential users (laypersons) to learn and engage in responsible AI discussions. We are designing a platform (the curriculum is the first stage), that harnesses Africa’s design ideas, translates and integrates them into existing AI methodologies that will be used to produce responsible AI solutions that are unique and appropriate for Africa. It will contribute to building responsible AI capacity that addresses contextual issues of ethics, equity, etc in AI especially as it affects the sociocultural and religious values of the African communities. This project will mainstream the development and implementation of AI short courses that will foreground AI research and stimulate the learning/adoption of responsible Human-Centered AI in Africa.

The project team will achieve these through (a) Designing short introductory courses in dual mode; from the practitioner’s and communities' perspectives to support the acquisition of responsible AI skills (b) Producing engagement materials (inform of audiovisual tutorials, etc) from the community perspectives – local languages to motivate learning, training, and use of responsible AI (c) Course content will be based on distilling and incorporating relevant cases, experiences, and lessons from fieldwork conducted in an African context (or similar contexts) and published in scholarly venues.

Publications

Bushra Anjum, A Conversation with Shaimaa Lazem: toward inclusive design methodologies for technology, Ubiquity Volume 2022, Issue September 2022, Article No.: 2pp 1–6, https://doi.org/10.1145/3564662

First AI Start-up pitch empowers innovative entrepreneurs: 2021. https://forumonline.unam.edu.na/first-ai-start-up-pitch-empowers-innovative-entrepreneurs/. Accessed: 2022-11-16.

Shaimaa Lazem, HCI education of choice: on becoming critical and growing inclusivity, XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Magazine for Students 2021, Volume 27 Issue 3, pp 46–49, https://doi.org/10.1145/3456296

Lazem, S.; Giglitto, D.; Nkwo, M.S.; Mthoko, H.; Upani, J.; Peters, A. Challenges and Paradoxes in Decolonising HCI: A Critical Discussion. Comput. Support. Coop Work 2021, 31, 159–196

Nkwo, M., Orji, R.: Persuasive technology in African context deconstructing persuasive techniques in an African online marketplace. In: ACM International Conference Proceeding Series. pp 89– 98, Association for Computing Machinery, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1145/3283458.3283479

Needs