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Experts Urge Africa To Invest In Digitalisation To Keep Economies Afloat Amid Covid-19 Induced Shocks

Economy & Investments Dario Branchi, MTN Digital Consultant
JUN 3, 2020 LISTEN
Dario Branchi, MTN Digital Consultant

The Africa Digital Festival has held an Artificial Intelligence conference via webinar with a focus on boosting businesses and building a resilient economy in Africa through digitalisation during the era of COVID-19 pandemic.

Themed “Building a contactless Economy beyond COVID-19”, the seminar championed on the relevance of using AI to transact businesses in Africa which would significantly serve as a tool for promoting and sustaining businesses amidst COVID-19.

Seasoned speakers include Dario Branchi MTN Digital Consultant, Abeeku Entsua-Mensah Researcher, Business Strategy and Innovation at Deloitte-Ghana, Darlington Ahiale Akogo an Artificial Intelligence Engineer, Gudra Mindhealth, with Foster Kofi Sam serving as the Moderator for the seminar.

Building a buoyant economy with the help of AI, Dario Branchi said MTN’s plan of building a strong digital economy with its Mobile Money App has the ability to ease payments in a much simpler and safer way to grow the economy during pandemics.

In his view, the target of Mobile Money is safe transactions, especially at market places to create a cashless environment. He indicated that, MTN is working on an App known as ‘Ayoba’ which is more dependable and reliable.

Mr. Dario however cited cyber fraud as a risk factor associated with AI which usually involves systems being hacked down. He however indicated that MTN has assembled a strong technical team to quell any cyber attack and has significantly seen a reduction in Mobile Money fraud in recent times.

He added that MTN has not rested on its oars as it continues to churn our public education on ways customers can easily detect fraud and how to report those activities for quick solution which involve arresting perpetrators.

According to Darlington Ahiale Akogo, Artificial Intelligent has an amazing potential to help build a digitised economy to facilitate easy transactions and collect business data.

He added that AI has helped in the collection of data for projections and further predicts the future of the COVID-19 pandemic.

On his part, the benefits of AI are very enormous especially in the health sector which is used in diagnosing diseases in an accurate, easier and simple manner.

Touching on AI as means of cost-effective tool, Mr Akogo indicated that it saves the cost of time and procurement of hardware where AI could exist on phones, laptops and other devices.

Abeeku Entsua Mensah indicated that the covid-19 pandemic presents the need for stakeholders to understand digitisation, which areas to digitise and evaluate while placing emphasis on public education about innovation points and risks associated with it.

He said it was important for economies to start taking strategic plans towards the COVID-19 pandemic and conduct a thorough assessment of the economy.

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