This week in AI

There are two ways we can sense a vibe shift in the entire AI industry, and this week felt like a big one. Meta unveiled Orion, a new pair of AR glasses that might be the first big computing device since the smartphone. Things are not looking good at OpenAI, as some key players announced their departure.

Back here at home, It was a week full of events and wins particularly in AI if you didn't attend any we got you covered a bit.

Welcome back to this week in AI.

AI & TECH NEWS

Tanzania AI community won the Meta Llama Award

Recently Tanzania AI community through their product TWIGA, has been awarded by Meta! Last year, Meta launched the Llama Impact Grants and Llama Impact Innovation Awards, which aim to support organizations using Llama to address major challenges in education, the environment, and technological innovation.?? Last week, Twiga was proudly one of the Llama Impact Innovation Awards recipients! Twiga provides teachers with a?virtual assistant for generating exams, lesson notes, and course materials tailored to the Tanzanian curriculum?via WhatsApp. Twiga uses Llama 3 to generate contextualized educational content to address the shortage of quality resources and the high workload of teachers in Tanzania. It uses Llama 3 70B in its RAG pipeline to generate high-quality educational exercises and Llama 3 7B for smaller tasks like efficient query pre-processing and data extraction.

Read more: Here.

Sartify Swahili LLM won the Mozilla Award.

Sartify LLC An artificial intelligence company based in Tanzania has also won among 14 existing projects and only one from Tanzania.

• A Large Language Model (LLM) for Swahili by Sartify was the project – Designed to provide general and domain-specific AI capabilities for Swahili-speaking regions, Sartify’s Swahili-LLM supports multilingual interactions in East Africa. The goal is to make AI more accessible and drive inspiration within these communities to engage in AI research and development.
• Mozilla launched the Mozilla Builders Accelerator with the theme of local AI back in June. The goal was to spark innovation in the AI ecosystem. Now, This time 14 exciting projects are leading the charge.
• After a call to AI and machine learning engineers who are passionate about open source and local AI, almost 200 applicants from 44 countries stepped up to push the boundaries of what’s possible with running models directly on personal devices instead of relying on the cloud. After a rigorous review process, The 14 groundbreaking projects were cut, each earning up to $100,000 in funding and mentorship from Mozilla.

AI Insights from Sahara Ventures Events.

AI in climate: Seedspace, Victoria

One of the most captivating events was the discussion on AI’s role in addressing climate change. Speakers from Tanzania AI Community, Omdena, Sahara Ventures, WFP, and others shared their projects and efforts in leveraging AI to tackle climate challenges. It was an insightful and inspiring conversation, showcasing innovative approaches in this critical field

AI in Marketing & Advertising: Perspectives from Serengeti Bytes

At Sahara Ventures HQ, Kennedy Mmari and Michael Mallya from Serengeti Bytes shared valuable insights on the use of AI in marketing. They discussed their personal experiences with AI tools and shared their thoughts on the future of AI, particularly in the marketing sector.

Importantly, the event had strong female representation—half of the four speakers were women, highlighting the growing diversity in the field,

AI and future of work.

In this other workshop, Essa Mohamedali led a key session on the intersection of AI and the future of work. The event brought together experts from diverse sectors to exchange ideas.

Jumanne Mtambalike and Dr. Ntimi provided an overview of a report on Tanzania’s readiness for AI technology, exploring the ecosystem’s potential. Essa also introduced the Tanzania AI Community, outlining its mission, achievements, and goals.

Shirin Namiq highlighted the importance of women’s involvement in AI and technology. She emphasized how young men can be crucial in supporting their sisters, mothers, and wives to succeed in these fields.

This event brings light on the skills and strategies needed for us to thrive in an AI-driven world and ensure a smooth workforce transition.

Generative AI meetup.

This Saturday as well, Tanzania Data Lab hosted an exciting event themed “Generative AI for Personalization in User Experiences”. Key speakers, Frank from Broken Technologies and Fredy German Mgimba , shared their insights on how generative AI is shaping personalized experiences.

This marks the 12th Generative AI event, a huge milestone for the organizers and sponsors, including Sarufi, Tanzania Data Lab, Broken Technologies, Yetu AI, Tausi, and others. Congratulations to everyone involved for a successful event!

To get more updates on generative AI events like this, get in touch with Neurotech Africa

Everything else you should know.

Meta’s Bold AI Moves: What You Need to Know

Just days after OpenAI launched its Advanced Voice mode, Meta is closing in fast. Its new chat feature lets you talk with iconic voices or create your own, no subscription needed — and you can try it today. But that's only the beginning.

Here’s what Meta announced at its AI-focused Connect showcase:

• Llama 3.2: Meta’s latest AI model, fully multimodal, can understand both images and text, powered by Nvidia GPUs.
• Smart Glasses: Meta’s Ray-Ban glasses will soon help you with real-time tasks like finding your car or translating languages.
• AI Studio: Build an avatar that looks and sounds like you, capable of real conversations, with automatic dubbing and lip-sync for multilingual videos.
• Orion: The biggest reveal — an AR headset in the form of ordinary glasses. It lets you interact with 3D holograms and use hand gestures through a neural interface.

Meta’s next-gen platform, years in the making, might change how we experience the world — like the iPhone did.

Shakeups at OpenAI: CTO Mira Murati Steps Down

On Wednesday, OpenAI's CTO Mira Murati announced she’s stepping down after six years, surprising the AI community. She shared that she’s ready to focus on personal projects.

But the surprises didn’t stop there. Just hours later, both Chief Research Officer Bob McGrew and VP of Research Barret Zoph announced their departures as well.

Adding to the news, Reuters reported that OpenAI is finalizing plans to become a for-profit company, with CEO Sam Altman set to receive equity for the first time.

What these changes mean for OpenAI is still uncertain. While going for-profit could ease operations, losing key leaders like Murati will certainly have an impact.

Meanwhile, you shouldn't miss this:

• Be Prepared: The New York-based startup Prepared raised $27M in its bid to make emergency calls more efficient and accurate with the help of AI.
• Break the Bank: Visa is expected to acquire the AI-powered cybersecurity firm Featurespace for a purported $935M.
• AI Antidote: The pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca is teaming up with New York startup Immunai to use AI to speed up cancer drug trials.
• Borderless Benchmarks: OpenAI introduced an open-source AI evaluation tool that can rate LLMs’ performance across 14 languages, including German, Bengali, and Arabic.

Tools for productivity.

Sequel: Get instant insights and visuals by simply asking questions about your data.

Nuvio: An AI-powered platform that handles your income, expenses, and cash flow, letting you focus on what matters.

Epsilla: Build LLM-powered applications grounded by private or public data of your choice.

Small Hours: An AI-powered observability platform with automated root cause analysis and issue triaging, enabling faster diagnosis and resolution of problems.

Syllaby: Turn any idea into a viral faceless video. Create Shorts or long-form faceless videos on any topic in minutes with Syllaby – the only long-form faceless video tool on the market.

prompt of the week

How about this prompt?

AI AT home

Kaleb Gwalugano: CEO of the Year for AI Innovation

This week, we celebrate kalebu Gwalugano , Founder and CEO of Neurotech Africa. Through C Insider magazine, Kaleb has been recognized as CEO of the Year, honoring his outstanding contributions and efforts in advancing the AI sector.

Kaleb is the founder of Neurotech, a company that owns products like Sarufi and Ghala, focusing on improving language technology and data solutions in Africa.

THE END

Thanks for reading,

Until next time keep building.