Only recently has the image of Africa and the African people began shifting in the media and in the perception of those living outside the motherland. Africa is a continent with thousands of ethnic groups that speak different languages and dialects. This rich cultural diversity also brings a complexity in communication especially within local regions that have multiple languages spoken by various people groups. This communication barrier has been linked to hinderances in socio-economic development.
OBTranslate is the global Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform seeking to bridge this communication gap and increase business development and employment opportunities for Africans. Gabriel Emmanuel, is the CEO of OpenBinacle and is the innovator behind this dynamically adaptive platform. “Our goal is to break language communication barriers in rural and urban areas in Africa and it will enable self-driving cars, smartphones, linear robots and wireless technology to communicate and interact with Africans in their dialects,” said Gabriel. The major tasks of the portal include voice and accent recognition, messaging protocol, African-based programming languages, natural language processing, education materials, television subtitles and music lyrics recognition. OBTranslate is anticipated to create job opportunities for about 100 million Africans with a projection of 3.6 billion USD in passive income for the African market.
It is unsurprising that African-based developers are increasingly implementing Artificial Intelligence to solve the continent’s problems, and the return on these investments are inevitable. The technology gap between the developed and developing world kept Africa, and similar continents at a disadvantage for many years, but as access, literacy and opportunities for innovation and learning through technology and AI increases the future looks significantly brighter for this resource-rich continent.
