From Controversy to Change: The Surprising Ways AI is Helping Rural Communities Thrive

AI is everywhere.

From Gemini to Grok, ChatGPT to CoPilot, it seems that every major company is hopping on the AI bandwagon.

This sudden AI escalation has been met with differing responses. On one hand, the techbros have found their true love. AI is the answer to everything you could ever dream of, short of the meaning of life…oh wait, it’s done that already too. But seriously, AI is heralding a revolutionary transformation to the way we use technology, and it does not seem to be slowing down any time soon.

However, not everyone is so jazzed about the everything everywhere all at once of AI. Creatives all over the world now have to prove that the ‘human touch’ in their work still holds value over the incomparable speed and quality of large language models such as ChatGPT. On a more insidious note, AI art has also come under fire for drawing reference from human artists’ existing work without credit or remuneration of any sort – artists are calling intellectual property theft.

The education sphere itself presents a fascinating divide. While students may rejoice at the convenience of AI in helping them with presentations and difficult school work, teachers and professors now have to grapple with the pain of reading their students’ shoddily AI-generated essays.

Love it or hate it, the fact of the matter is that AI is here to stay.

AI for good? We love to see it.

But why not put aside the pessimistic, doomsday narrative just for a while to look at the positive? That’s right – all controversies aside, AI has actually been operating as a force for good.

Opportunity International, a nonprofit organisation aiming to tackle the issue of systemic poverty, recently hosted an acceleration incubator focussing on developing AI-based solutions for impoverished communities. The winning idea of the programme? A generative AI chatbot that converses with rural farmers in Malawi in their native tongue, Chichewa, allowing them to ask any questions related to agricultural issues they are facing. The app, called Ulangizi, is able to provide responses in conversational Chichewa, drawing its information from the government’s agricultural manual. Farmers are now able to get the agricultural solutions they need at the touch of a button, instead of having to wait days for external workers to visit their farms and address their problems.

AI and Education

Also making waves in the acceleration incubator were two education related AI-app solutions, similarly targeted towards rural communities in Africa. One app is targeted towards helping school owners to run their schools effectively, while the other aims to assist teachers in developing their lessons.

This second idea was birthed out of Lordina Omanhene-Gyimah’s experience in a Ghanaian rural school, where she discovered the crucial lack of resources that teachers had on how to cater their lesson plans to students of different ages. Her app employs AI to generate lesson plans based on the information she inputs about her students and their learning styles.

Although these apps are still in their early stages of development, it is plain to see that education is a key concern that their founders share. No doubt about it: if AI is meant to influence education for good, it must definitely come through innovation of this sort – a far cry from the audacity of students using it to submit their assignments!

However, AI is still a new player in the game of social change, and does not come without its share of complications. Those in rural communities do not typically enjoy uninterrupted Internet access or ownership of smartphones, and AI is not 100% reliable in the answers it provides, sometimes hallucinating information and presenting it to users as indisputable truth.

Perhaps with enough training and development over the next few years, these AI chatbots will eventually improve their overall quality and become a staple for education in rural communities. But for today, if something more reliable is needed, CaseStudy is an excellent solution that is ready right now.

The Case for CaseStudy

CaseStudy is the Patatas’ complete school-in-a-box learning management system that connects teachers and learners in zero-infrastructure communities anywhere. We understand the power of education in levelling the playing field and aim to use technology to bring this gift of education to those who deserve it.

Just like Opportunity International’s solutions, CaseStudy is designed specifically to bring education to such rural communities. It is also not dependent on internet or power, allowing learners to use it regardless of their Internet access.

CaseStudy does not currently employ AI in its suite of technological abilities, but comes fully equipped with its own digital library of resources to eliminate a reliance on textbooks or internet connectivity.

Similar to Lordina’s app, CaseStudy also provides a cost-effective solution for running large classrooms. One single CaseStudy is around the price of an average laptop, but can serve an entire classroom of up to 20 devices within a 30-50 metre range. This ensures that learners all get to enjoy the same digital experience with CaseStudy, and no one is left behind.

Although it is a purely digital and technological system, CaseStudy is remarkably simple to set up, onboard and use, even without technical expertise. Its user-friendly interface and dedicated support team allow users to keep their focus on teaching and learning, without having to worry about technical issues.

Patatas is always on the lookout for new partners who catch our vision of education for all, who are excited to hop on the CaseStudy train with us. So if this is something you’re interested in, don’t hesitate to reach out.

So is AI good or bad?

At the end of the day, every new piece of technology is just a neutral medium, never intrinsically good or bad on its own. Here’s the clincher, though: whether it becomes a force for positive or negative change is a decision that we get to hold in our hands.

While not all of us are able to join AI incubators and come up with award-winning ideas for the world, sometimes making a difference doesn’t have to be such a big thing. It could be something as simple as saying yes to the right partnership.

In a world where education is so accessible to those of us who have been so privileged, it’s becoming more and more important to ensure that everybody can enjoy it. In this rapidly changing world of tech and innovation, wouldn’t you like to know that you leveraged it for good?

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