AI Workshop Schedule

Date: September 30
Location: UP, Merensky Library Auditorium

About the Workshop

With the speed at which AI has developed over recent years, the impact is felt through all levels of society – from influencing the way people organise their daily lives to its abuse by groups wishing to sway elections and extend their criminal reach. With many countries reacting to the use of AI with varying degrees of skepticism and optimism, Africa has unfortunately been recognised as one of the regions that is most vulnerable due to the lack of organised skills and infrastructure.

Despite these vulnerabilities, however, an informal network of skilled individuals are navigating the African ICT landscape to great effect – using AI to increase people’s access to services and increase service efficiency. Generally, these networks have a strong drive to improve the livelihoods of their communities, but they are difficult to map and understand as they often exist outside of government regulations and stretch beyond state borders. Developments within these networks run at a much higher pace, creating an ecosystem of its own that transcends the reach and influence of governments and authorities.

The Embassy of Sweden in Pretoria has invited AI Sweden to South Africa with the overall mutual objective of exploring the AI landscape in South Africa and the region – with one eye on solidifying and increasing existing cooperation and another eye on exploring future cooperation on different levels. AI Sweden is the Swedish national center for applied AI, with the mission to accelerate the use of AI for the benefit of society. AI Sweden’s position as an AI interest group uniquely positions it to create and cooperate with similar groups within the African region and to build relationships based on similar values – essentially leading to using AI for ‘good.’

This also presents a unique opportunity, not only to create a platform for cooperation between Sweden and South Africa to increase trade and cooperation but also to support Sweden’s effort to promote democratic values and sustainable development in South Africa and throughout the region. AI Sweden’s cooperation with the University of Pretoria (UP) in developing AI language models presents an excellent opportunity to support the building of a stronger long-term relationship between two entities that share values in line with the Swedish values approach. Through this, the University of Pretoria has shown a unique interest in developing AI, both locally and regionally, that positions it as a relevant and important actor in the AI landscape in Africa.

For this event, we will host a workshop on September 30th, featuring two distinct sessions:

• The first session will explore language model development between South Africa and Sweden, with a focus on creating multilingual models using limited resources through discussions with specialists and academics.*
• The second session will examine the future of AI, its impact on Africa from both technical and policy perspectives, and strategies for proactive cooperation to maximise its benefits.

Schedule

12:00 – 12:50 | Arrival and Lunch

12:50 – 13:10 | Welcome Remarks

• Dr. Linda Marshall Acting HOD COmputer Science
• Håkan Juholt Ambassador of Sweden

Panel 1: Low Resource Languages and Artificial Intelligence

Moderator: Lesego Makhafola

Panelists:

• Nomonde Khalo
  PhD Student, University of Cape Town
• Prof. Vukosi Marivate
  Data Science for Social Impact
• Dr. Chijioke Okorie
  Data Science Law Lab
• Paul Dos Santos
  AI Engineer for the Natural Language Understanding (NLU) Lab, AI Sweden

13:10 – 13:30 | Opening Remarks

13:30 – 14:00 | Moderator Session

14:00 – 14:45 | Open Q&A with the Audience

14:45 – 15:15 | Coffee Break

Panel 2: Industry, AI, and R&D

Moderator: Prof. Vukosi Marivate

Panelists:

• Greg Desilla
  Melio AI
• Martin Svensson
  Managing Director, AI Sweden
• Saidah Nash Carter
  Co-Founder & CEO, Bright Insights Global

15:15 – 15:35 | Opening Remarks

15:35 – 16:00 | Moderated Discussion

16:00 – 16:45 | Open Q&A with Audience

16:45 – 17:00 | Closing Remarks

• Prof. Vukosi Marivate
• Martin Svensson
• Wrap-up and next steps