Today, the world is facing a variety of problems such as climate change and food crisis. We invite experts from various fields to discuss the current situation and solutions to these problems with Ms. Marika Sera, a university student and TV personality who is eager to “learn more about the world! and university student and TV personality Marika Sera, who is eager to “learn more about the world,” together with invited guests who are experts in various fields, will discuss the current situation and solutions to such problems. The theme of the second session is “DX and Generative AI in Developing Countries. We interviewed Mr. Takayuki Fukatsu, interaction designer and representative director of THE GUILD, who is also familiar with generative AI, and Ms. Mayumi Miyata, former deputy director of JICA’s STI-DX Office, which promotes international cooperation through DX, and currently head of the Tunisian office.
ICT education in Rwanda (courtesy of Sakura)
Sub-Saharan” accounts for 70% of global mobile payment value
Ms. Mayumi Miyata, Director of JICA Tunisia Office (hereinafter “Miyata”) Please take a look at the picture below. This is a part of a bill of a certain country.
Marika Sera (Sera) Where is it? I’m not sure.
Miyata This is a 500 franc bill from Rwanda, Africa. It depicts children at a computer. JICA is also supporting this initiative.
Part of Rwanda’s 500 franc bill
Ms. Mayumi Miyata is the Director of the Tunisia Office. After working in the Japanese IT industry and international cooperation projects in the ICT field in Bhutan and Cambodia, she joined JICA in 2010. She worked in the Private Sector Development Group of the Economic Development Department and the Deputy Director of the STI/DX Office of the Governance and Peacebuilding Department before assuming her current position. He participated online from Tunisia on this day.
Miyata Also, 70% of the world’s mobile payment volume is in the sub-Saharan region, known as the “sub-Sahara, “*1 as mobile money, called M-PESA, has spread throughout Africa.
1 According to GSMA2023.
Sera: As much as 70% of all mobile payments in the world! That’s amazing.
Takayuki Fukatsu, President of THE GUILD (hereinafter Fukatsu) Africa did not have old infrastructures such as wired ADSL and ISDN, so conversely, digitalization progressed rapidly. Since they suddenly started with mobile devices, it was easy for them to adopt new social systems and businesses.
Miyata Yes, that’s right. Digitalization is also progressing in the healthcare sector. For example, Emergency Response Africa (ERA), an emergency medical response service in Nigeria, allows you to call an ambulance for a monthly membership fee of about $13. Public emergency medical services are often not functioning, but when you call ERA, medical staff will come to you immediately. In addition, Rwanda has introduced a generated AI chat doctor by UK-based Babylon Holdings Limited, which will decide whether to go to the hospital or not by chatting about symptoms such as “I have a headache” or “I have a sore throat.
Vehicles used for ERA emergency transport
Tsunaki Ito, Assistant to the Facilitator, JICA Public Affairs Department (hereinafter “Ito”): Mr. Fukatsu, why is DX not progressing in Japan?
Fukatsu: I think the main reason is that the existing infrastructure is solid. For example, if an ambulance comes when you call 119, it is difficult to start emergency medical services and telemedicine using DX. In Japan, there is also the problem of the huge initial investment cost.
Sera But should I proceed with DX for the future?
Fukatsu: Actually, yes. Infrastructure has to be rebuilt after a few decades.
Sera Why is Africa so prone to DX?
Marika Sera, who says she also used mobile money when she visited Kenya, was born in Kanagawa Prefecture in 2002 and started her career in show business in 19 years, working as a model and TV personality. She became the youngest ever Miss World 2019 Japan at the age of 16. She is enrolled in the Faculty of Policy Studies at Keio University.
Miyata: There are three main reasons: First, the average age is overwhelmingly young. The second is the lack of alternative services. Third, there are few regulations. In Japan, it takes time to get permission from the government, but in Africa, laws have not yet been established in some areas, so people can try things out as they go.
2 Based on CIA World Factbook.
Fukatsu: This may have something to do with the fact that the land in Africa is large. It is difficult to build roads and water lines over a large area, but in the extreme, IT services can be deployed at once without much cost as long as radio towers are erected.
Sera JICA supports DX in Africa, but will the knowledge gained in Africa be used in Japan in the future?
Miyata: Yes, JICA is supporting demonstration tests of Japanese services in Africa. For example, JICA has been supporting research on HAPS (High Altitude Platform Station), a stratospheric communications platform being developed by Softbank, and Softbank conducted the world’s first 5G demonstration in Rwanda in September 2023. By flying antennas, the signal can be delivered to areas that were previously out of reach of cellular signals. If realized, this will help solve the problem of the digital divide (people who do not have access to the benefits of IT).
We also help deliver them from Japan to the world. Melody International Corporation, located in Takamatsu City, Kagawa Prefecture, is involved in telemedicine in the Seto Inland Sea, a region with many underpopulated medical areas. We developed a remote medical examination solution for pregnant women, who have particular difficulty in visiting hospitals, that allows them to remotely check the health status of their babies. We subsequently developed a service that can be used around the world, and now we are deploying it in 11 countries. When you take a familiar issue in Japan and rethink it from a global perspective, you can make a big impact. This is an important point when considering DX in Africa, and since JICA has offices around the world, we would like to work together with local people to resolve issues.
Image of HAPS (provided by SOFTBANK) “iCTG,” a delivery monitoring device that can remotely check the health of the baby (provided by Melody International Inc.)
What are the advantages and disadvantages of generative AI in developing countries?
Sera: Generative AI such as ChatGPT is now becoming popular. What are the advantages and disadvantages of such generative AI for developing countries?
Fukatsu: In the case of Africa, I think the advantages are greater. First, a language AI like ChatGPT can give commands to the machine in human language, give various instructions, and gather information, which can solve the cost problem. For example, sending staff trained in Japan or the U.S. to Africa to do a job would be costly, and there would be a limit to the number of people that could be hired. However, with ChatGPT, you can customize and teach expertise to perform many advanced tasks in multiple languages for as little as $20/month. We also feel that the generated AI allows for advanced information gathering and greatly expands the amount and quality of information that can be accessed.
Takayuki Fukatsu. Interaction Designer in Japan, CXO of NOTE K.K. Representative Director of THE GUILD Inc. Advisor to Yokosuka City AI Strategy.
Sera On the contrary, are there any disadvantages?
Fukatsu: One disadvantage may be the fear of spreading propaganda and fake news using generative AI in areas where conflicts and civil wars are taking place. However, this is not limited to Africa, but could happen anywhere in the world. For people in Africa, I think there are more benefits such as “earning foreign currency as an engineer.
Miyata: I think that there are cases where over-regulating data distribution can have disadvantages. For example, there is an example from Asia, not Africa, where a certain country has mapped the state of forest protection and converted it into data. If this data could be shared with neighboring countries, it would be even more useful for conservation activities, but in that country, the government took the stance that it was forbidden to take the data outside the country. Therefore, JICA has proposed the need for a “data free flow” to distribute reliable data while taking care to protect personal information.
Generative AI multimodal coming next
Sera Can generative AI be used for international cooperation in the future?
Fukatsu: In cases where highly skilled personnel are needed but there are not enough of them, or where there are variations in the level of human skills, we believe that generative AI can be used as an assistant to standardize the quality of the work.
Miyata: For example, I think it would be useful to share the knowledge of agricultural extension workers who teach agriculture in developing countries. In some areas of the world, people rely on experience and intuition to farm, such as “tasting the soil and deciding what seeds to sow,” but if AI can support agricultural extension workers, they may be able to farm without relying on this kind of intuition.
Ito: Now, here, we asked Mr. Fukatsu to customize ChatGPT and create an AI that will be an assistant for agricultural extension workers, based on published manuals for agricultural extension workers and other information. Mr. Sera will actually be a new agricultural extension agent and will consult with Pakistani farmers, and we will use the generated AI as a support. I will play the role of the farmer and ask questions. “Actually, I am having trouble with Orobanche recently. What should I do?
Sera Orobanche …… First time I’ve heard of this. I will ask a question to the generating AI.
Generated AI Answer Orobanche is a parasitic plant. Maintaining soil health is important to prevent the development of Orobanche. Proper fertilizer management and soil amendments are necessary.
Mr. Fukatsu’s customized ChatGPT answer screen
Sera: I have an answer. You say “parasitic plants.”
ITOH: Your answer is correct.
Fukatsu It is recommended that these generated AIs be owned by agricultural extension workers or used by agricultural extension workers in their offices. Current generation AIs are not stable in performance and may give wrong answers. It is risky to communicate this directly to the general public, so it is better to use it only as an “assistant to the staff” at first, or for senior staff to cross-check.
Sera: I see. So you are saying that the AI is only for generating ideas and support, and the final decision will be made by humans.
Fukatsu: Yes, that’s right. Or, a human could make a plan and have a generative AI check if it is not out of sync with the best way to operate the manual. The next AI is said to be multimodal and will be able to process voice and images together. Maybe this year, next year, while uploading a photo, can I plant this seed like this? and so on, while uploading a photo. Another thing I think we will see is proactive AI. When something important happens, the AI will talk to you. To take an extreme example, if we have access to the health data of people in a village, if we have information that all the villagers are no longer healthy, we can analyze if, for example, soil contamination may be occurring. I think it would be possible to analyze, for example, whether soil contamination might be occurring.
Miyata: Until now, we have spent a lot of time training new agricultural extension agents, but a generative AI may shorten the training time. However, the communication part, such as visiting farmers together and finding issues to be solved by interviewing farmers, will remain, no matter how much the development of generative AI. We expect that generative AI will make the introduction part of training more efficient, so that more time can be spent on human-to-human communication.
ITOH: Also, no matter how good a system is introduced, it is meaningless if it is not used. It is necessary to involve the local people and have them take the initiative. This is a major issue in international cooperation and a difficult part.
Sera I am usually conscious of using ChatGPT as “just a tool,” but if it can be used in the same way in international cooperation situations, it would be a great help.
Fukatsu: You are right. AI has its strengths and weaknesses, and I think it is important for humans to understand these and divide the labor.
© Source JICA
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