 Okay, there's now the craze for AI in everything and when you go to the social media a lot of people know AI just for photographs and they're changing their photographs and making themselves look good but AI goes beyond, goes beyond photographs and some of the things that we do for just enjoyment. We can actually, according to experts, Africa can overcome poverty and others with AI. That's according to the NCC boss Dan Bata and we have a guest in the house this morning, Dominic Rumey Aurivier, a certified blockchain architect and Metaverse expert. He's going to tell us how true that statement is. Dominic, good morning and welcome to the program. Good morning and thank you for having me. Okay, let's know the potential of AI. Let's begin with that. Let's know what AI really is and what it can be used for. Okay, truly, I just want to tell you just imagine AI being able to create new jobs and industries in Africa. Imagine artificial intelligence also being able to boost Africa's economic growth and also improve the quality of life for Africans. In the words of one of our fellow Africans, as the current vice president of Ghana, we said Africa is the first, second, and third industrial revolution, but he's determined that our continent will not miss the fourth and fifth, and the fourth and fifth is characterised by a high level of technological innovation and it is actually a good thing that our NCC boss, which is Professor Uma Dan Bata, has stated that Africa can actually overcome a major challenges of food insecurity, poverty and healthcare using artificial intelligence. You know, currently there is an ongoing theory-based annual conference with the team of artificial intelligence and Africa. And Dan Bata said that this particular artificial intelligence would actually provide these major solutions to solve the challenges that African countries are actually going right now. Because when you look at it, some of the challenges revolve around healthcare, education, infrastructure development, looking at infrastructure development, you can see that with artificial intelligence, you can actually put more products into the market faster. Let's say for developers now, Africans might not really have had the best developers, but with artificial intelligence, you can write codes, you can fix and debug those codes, and then you can also deploy those codes into the market to be able to have a full-finished product. How about poverty alleviation? It can actually help to use to develop targeted alleviation programs that can actually help to support these vulnerable populations. If it's food security, artificial intelligence algorithm will help agriculture, productivity and efficiency, and it will see that the food shortage that a lot of African countries are also having right now will be solved. So he's not wrong. He's correct. Also subject to the human factor. For instance, let me give you an instance. INEC said that we're going to use technology to make our election better, so that by now we wouldn't be in the courts anyway if we had applied it. But they chose not to apply it in some places and applied it in some others, and the places they applied it, we didn't have much problems. Where they didn't apply it, we have problems till date, and it might carry us beyond 2023. So what can be put in place now to make sure that when artificial intelligence is being deployed, people cannot maneuver it to their own advantage. You go to the ports, even things like common CCTV cameras, you won't find them, and you still find criminality within the ports, and they're not doing what they're supposed to do. You still find this kind of things happening in the oil sector, for instance. When you go to UAE, you find everything about oil, every drop of oil, can be monitored from one room, which Nigeria can afford, but they are not doing that. So how sure are we that we can even be comfortable with the AI technology in Africa? What needs to be put in place now by anybody who is serious minded so that the next generation will enjoy this thing we're talking about? So this point just raised now, that's where the place of ethics come in for artificial intelligence. And the NCC bus actually said that it's very important that we ensure that AI systems are transparent, accountable, and fair. Once also see that these AI systems, they can actually give us high level of data security and privacy so that they don't just go into things that are not permitted for them to also access. Now you see one of the major reasons why technology has actually had a, has taken a back seat, especially here in Africa, is the fact that we're actually not ready to embrace all of the technologies and implement it. You know, action creates energy, inaction creates depression, and we're depressed from the fact that we can see that these things can actually be implemented into our systems and no action is being taken. For example, in the place of supply chain management that you said, when somebody is able to track the movement of goods from one place to another, it would have been said that okay, we can use blockchain technology to be able to solve that type of problem. But then is that being done, blockchain technology has been around for the last five years, but even in the U.S., they know that they can use blockchain technology to be able to do their elections free and fair, and everybody will be able to see those transactions, digital tokens on the blockchain. But they've not implemented that, even as, as technologically advanced as the United States, to be able to start conducting their elections. I'm positive that the next 24 elections, even though with blockchain, we can use them to actually still make, still do elections, they will not use blockchain to do their own elections. And that's to tell you that the system is still corrupt and the system needs a little bit of change. So it is a situation of educating people more in my, so in my last book that I released from code to consciousness, bridging the gap between artificial intelligence and humans for powerful results. I restated the fact again, that education and the ability to see that people can do it themselves and being able to acquire the skill set of the future, especially with technologies of the future is extremely important. And this we see that the changes are truly affected in small, small circles. For example, in some private sectors, technology has been used to be able to start to do things like voting, to be able to see that goods have been tracked from one place to another in agriculture, they are defy programs for small farmers here in Africa already. And these things are already being done. But the government is not adopting it. You know, when technology comes, it is individuals, government and businesses that has to adopt this technology. We see that whenever technology comes, individuals adopt technology, businesses adopt technology. But it is very slow for the government to adopt this technology. Yes, I know there needs to be a lot of policies and all that check to actually do, but I think this is actually a time reminder of the potential of artificial intelligence to transform Africa. Africa has the potential to address the world problem, feed the world and anything that the world is looking for. I mean, you can see a country like UK taking away from Africa. And you can see that with artificial intelligence, the supply chain management can be truly monitored in such a way that revenue generation is actually maximized. It is very important to use artificial intelligence responsibly and ethically. And education, we see that we're able to bridge that gap. And a lot of people, we apply it to their businesses and their day-to-day lives. But are we ready to explore this road? Because if artificial intelligence is the future, do we have the manpower that can operate in that space? And if we don't have the manpower, what do we need to do to grow this manpower that can take advantage of artificial intelligence for our benefit? So at the moment, I would say in terms of the manpower, we are developing the manpower. You know, as a developing country, we have some lapses that we still are trying to cover. But we have already taken a very huge step. The fact that we're discussing this this morning to be able to sensitize the population is one good step on it. Joining artificial intelligence associations, too, as someone that is interested in association in artificial intelligence advancement, we see that you are also able to adopt the technology on time. And you're in a community of people that are doing that same thing for you to always keep yourself up to date with it. That can truly see that a difference is made. Yeah, but in a situation where our school system, you have to go through the school system and then come out and then attach yourself to someone else before you can learn this kind of tech that we need to survive in our world. Where you still go to the primary school, nothing about tech there. You go to secondary schools, there's nothing about tech there. At least 90% of them, especially government-owned, they're still teaching handwriting and no computer, you see. So I don't know. Can we turn out a good number of people or we still need to leave these people to come out from school, spend four years or five years in school, as the case may be, and then come out and attach themselves to somebody as an apprentice before they can learn tech. Can't there be deliberate policies that will make sure that as a child grows up, he grows up with technology? What are those that you recommend? I'll tell you a story. And this story is from one of the richest, is from the richest man in the world right now, Ileon Moff. So I discovered something recently, I was trying to rewire my own learning and I discovered that Ileon Moff's children, right? They did not go to conventional schools. Now, there is a platform Syntezia, which I think I did some logic on it. So the truth is our educational system truly needs to be reworked. The syllabus needs to be improved. Some of the syllabus were done in 1999. They are still what we are using now, and it is not the best. One of the ways that people can actually level up is to see that if this is your passion, you can start going to schools that are specifically designed for this. For example, AdVorem, which is the platform for blockchain, web theory and AI skill mastery. You have courses just for technologies of the future. This is what the platform is focused on. You can just go there and learn technologies of the future, anything on blockchain. I just recently finished a course on artificial intelligence and cryptocurrency, their synergy together, and it is going to be launching there on the 1st of October. So this is what we have also been doing to see that as people come out and learn handwriting, learn how to draw toraks, they can also still go to online platform from the comfort of their homes, from their bed and be able to take these courses and learn and be able to keep up with technology so that they can be competitive in a changing world like this. But I like to say all the time that you don't miss what you do not know. You cannot miss what you do not know. If you don't know there is a car that exists, you can miss being in a car. If you don't know that there is an airplane, you can miss being in an airplane. So a lot of these people don't even know that these opportunities exist because they are not telling them in schools, they're not telling them in the places that they should know that, okay, even if we cannot offer it in school, there are places you can go to. And for instance, there could be an Elon Musk from my small village, but you find out that there is no internet in my small village, but there is a school and nobody is putting through these children to make sure that they know, they are informed, they are aware, they start to develop the love for it. All they will do is teach you how to be a preacher or an Imam. So that's one of the challenges that you have just made mention of. The fact that there is a high level of infrastructure gap and we are talking about technologies of the future. I've not been able to even conquer the traditional challenges and intricacies and we are moving very fast. The technology is changing like every three months. We are having Meta trying to give Elon Musk a run for his water products he's releasing, trying to give Microsoft the run for whatever they are producing. And the people in the village, they don't have internet to even assess this information, talk less of use the infrastructure, now understand the service to develop the skill sets. So this is where the gap and divide comes in. So you must be somebody that is truly interested in being able to change what's the things that are around you to be able to get involved in innovative technologies to also see that you want a better life than what is being offered wherever you are. Also look out for better opportunities to see that, okay, you can expose yourself to this type of information and become digitally savvy to take advantage of technologies of the future. Definitely it's not everyone that will be Elon Musk, it's not everyone that will be Bill Gates, it's not everyone that will be Steve Jobs, but then there will be people that will listen to this particular message now and be able to set the trajectory for their own future. On artificial intelligence, on blockchain, technologies of the future, it is going to be an amazing time in Nigeria and Africa. So will it take too much for the government to implement some policies that will make these things available to people even at remote areas, just as they have made schools available to people at the remote areas? Is it so cost, the cost implication, is it so much that it cannot be afforded by private schools and government schools, for instance? I'll tell you a true story again. This week, I forwarded some proposals. So there is a change of government that just happened now. In Delta State, yeah, I forwarded some proposals to the state government in terms of being able to teach. International Education Day is on 24th of January 2024. Now what I did is that I did a proposal to see that we teach youths these technologies of the future. Using our platform, right? But the biggest challenges that we are facing that we have to pass through layers. Now, there are people that have the manpower, there are people that have the technological skillset, the network of people. We have people outside the country, whites people that can also come help us take these things. But the levels we are having to pass. And then another thing is that somebody will not tell me too that if I want to be able to actually do this thing, well, I need to spread it in such a way that it must be for all 25 local governments in Delta State. Why? Because the Delta State government might not really want to go into this except they are having to get maybe favors from those local government as votes for the next time. So there's a lot of politics involved with educating the masses because they have their own selfish interests too. And then when you look at it, okay, what they would put a cost to it. How much to rent wedding hall for Legos? How much to rent hotel? The cost that we put to it was like, let's say about a hundred and, let's say 120,000 dollars. Now 120,000 dollars as of today is 120 million. To rent a hotel for people in worry, to basically want to do blockchain Delta, to be able to see that we rescue the lives of over 60 million citizens here, to be able to be concerned with the technologies of the future. You will not see that, okay, let's be able to do something like that, put costs, okay, like if you want to buy laptops to also empower these people after the tech, after the training, after the training, what next? So there's also, you also find a situation where even governments do this thing and they don't also provide innovation hubs, like there are innovation hubs here that has never really benefited anybody. Okay. People have really gotten jobs from the innovation hub that they have here and then they are able to work in Greece, they are able to work in Sweden, they are working in the US. It doesn't happen like that. So these are some of the challenges and the bottlenecks infrastructure, CS that you have to go through before you even get, you that you know what to do before you even get your message. We do hope that there will be somebody with a political will to change the lives of people and not look for selfish interests. Dominic, we'd like to thank you for coming on the program this morning. It's been a pleasure having you. All right, thank you very much. I'm grateful. Okay, we'll be talking to Dominic, Rume or Ririye, a certified blockchain architect and metaverse expert. We're looking at how Africa could leverage on the AI technology and improve the lives of the citizens of this continent. We'll take a very short break now and we'll be joined live by another guest that will be talking to us about IVF, which is in vitro fertilization. Stay with us.