African Children win a Global Prize for An AI Teaching System that Doesn’t Need the Internet

Poor internet connectivity and a shortage of cellphones still make it hard for people in many regions of the world to access education. Students Happy Niyorurema and Mame Niang from Texas Christian University have developed a way to send educational content via regular phone calls, so you don’t need a smartphone to access it. They won the Global Best M-Gov Award in Dubai for their new idea.

When we talk about AI, we usually think that humans are online and can use it. But 2.9 billion people, mostly in the Global South, still don’t have internet connection. That’s a little over a third of the world’s population. Happy Niyorurema remarked, “We made our own AI (large language model), but instead of putting it on the web, we used it for phone calls.”

The system works through regular phone calls, so students can access educational materials no matter where they are, even in isolated rural areas. You don’t need a smartphone to utilise it, which is great. I think this method is new because we usually think that everyone has a smartphone and the internet. But you can use this with any phone, even the simplest one. Mame Niang said, “We’ve already started our pilot program in Rwanda, and we’re going to expand it across Africa, starting with Senegal, Zambia, and other countries on the continent.”

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