New AI-based contest winners could enrich millions of lives: 'This is the biggest ... change that we have seen'

The nonprofit Opportunity International combed through hundreds of ideas to find — and fund — the top three uses of generative AI for serving communities in need around the world, Time magazine reported.

Last year, the organization approached humanitarian workers to pitch artificial intelligence-based ideas and refine them, all with help from mentors from tech innovators such as Microsoft and Amazon. After generating a crop of more than 200 ideas, Opportunity International chose 20 teams to develop prototypes. It then selected three winners to receive $150,000 each to help fund further development and get the apps to the communities that need them most.

The winners — all of them still without names — were announced in October. So who were they?

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The top idea was an app designed to help farmers cope with the changing climate. An existing chatbot app, Ulangizi, helps farmers in Malawi by explaining information from the government's agricultural manual in conversational Chichewa, their native language.

The new app would improve on that model by taking into account farmers' individual locations and circumstances, giving them tailored advice about what to plant, where to plant it, how much fertilizer to use, and so forth — all in the native languages of communities in Rwanda and Malawi.

"Our clients are never going to use Google," said Greg Nelson, the chief technology officer of Opportunity International, per Time. "Now, they can speak, and are spoken to, in their own language. … Since the mobile phone, this is the biggest democratizing change that we have seen in our lifetime."

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The second winner of Opportunity International's contest helps teachers in Ghana and Uganda create tailored lesson plans for classes of different ages with different learning styles. The third was also related to schools but was designed for management and leadership tasks including teacher recruitment, marketing, and behavioral management.

There are drawbacks to the use of generative AI. In these rural areas, not everyone has a smartphone or internet access. Also, generative AI uses a ton of water and power, which can contribute to environmental damage and take resources away from communities that need them. Finally, the programs sometimes give false information.

However, there are also benefits, and Opportunity International hopes to continue this program, rolling out more helpful AI apps each year.

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