Africa's AI crossroads with Yemi Keri

While the world debates artificial intelligence's implications for economies and everyday life, one question is too often overlooked: what does the AI revolution mean for Africa? In this episode, Till Kellerhoff, director for content and programmes at the Club of Rome, speaks with Yemi Keri, a technology executive, impact investor and ecosystem builder and member of the Club of Rome with over two decades of leadership experience across Africa's public and private sectors.  

As co-founder of Rising Tide Africa and president of the African Business Angel Network, Yemi brings a distinctive lens on inclusive capital and early-stage innovation. She sets out an optimistic case for AI as a "development equaliser" that could transform agriculture, healthcare and education across the continent, while pressing for African data sovereignty, homegrown cloud infrastructure and greater investment in local talent. The conversation also turns to the risks of a new extractive era built on data rather than raw materials, the energy demands of AI infrastructure, and why more women need a seat at the table in building the technology's future. Is this Africa's chance to leapfrog towards a more ethical and sustainable AI revolution, or do we risk repeating old patterns of inequality in new forms?

Transcript

Till: While everyone currently talks about artificial intelligence and its implications for our work, our economies and our lives, one topic that is often underexplored is the implications of the AI revolution for African countries and Africa's digital transformation. And one of the tech leaders driving this transformation is Yemi Keri.

Yemi is a technology executive, impact investor and ecosystem builder with over two decades of leadership experience across the public and private sectors in Africa. She's the co-founder of Rising Tide Africa, a women-focused angel investment network and the president of the African Business Angel Network, where she champions inclusive capital and supports the growth of early-stage ventures across the continent.

I'm Till Kellerhoff, director for Content and Programs at the Club of Rome and in this episode, we explore Yemi's take on what an AI-positive future could look like in Africa. Yemi paints a particularly optimistic picture of the future of AI in Africa and its possibilities to revolutionise agriculture, healthcare and innovation.

In this episode, we'll hear from her based on the experiences in Africa's innovation system, then unpack some of the other views on AI's risks and challenges. 

Till: Hi, Yemi. Welcome. Pleasure to have you on the Club of Rome Podcast. From where are you calling today?

Yemi: Today I'm speaking to you from the rainy season of Lagos. So if you listen behind me, you would hear traffic.

Till: We want to talk about this big topic of AI today and a question that gets rarely asked, but is maybe good to be asked from the perspective of the Club of Rome that wants to ask fundamental questions. What do we need AI for? What is AI for from your perspective? Why do we need it? 

Yemi: I facilitate at a business school and I tell them that it's going to become a utility, like we have electricity, in the long run. We need AI where it helps us solve real consistent problems, issues like healthcare access, agricultural productivity.

Can AI help a farmer increase their yields? Can it help a teacher reach 100 students or 400 students instead of maybe 20? So if AI helps us solve all of these kind of problems, then it becomes a transformational, tool or platform or enabler.

Till: So Yemi, if we look at concrete examples on the ground where AI is already useful today and will be useful in the future, what would that be from your perspective? 

Yemi: I mean, there are different variants of things that are happening. Particularly for when we are looking at the impact on climate change in itself on smallholder farmers. In the agri-sector, a lot of projects are using AI to ensure that information gets to the farmers at the, you know, the smallholder farmers because I mean, they grow our crops and we are predominantly an agri-economy.

And so, a lot of AI is being utilised and models are being built so that they help the farmers, the smallholder farmers, you know, with predictive crop, the soil testing, everything like that. The other one I know is really healthcare. Diagnosis of diseases, or symptoms as the medical people call it. It's more affordable to people that, in the rural areas, would have to transport themselves to a hospital to be able to get that done.

And so if you're looking at the impact on the society, a lot is being done and developed that is supporting and helping the society to grow.

Till: And you described AI as a utility, similar to electricity and one can also describe it as a tool. And I think what we see in the development of general, in the last decades and hundreds of years, is that tools can be used both for, let's say, good and evil, right?

Tools are not good per se or bad per se, but they can be used in different directions. And you named a few positive ones, particularly for the African continent and we will go more into that. But what gives you your optimism that AI indeed will follow the route of being used for the positive things rather than all the potentially negative ones, right?

You can use AI also for automated weapons. You can use AI for all kind of things that might not benefit the flourishing of humanity on our planet. So why are you optimistic about it?

Yemi: I guess I come from a standpoint that when we talk about good or bad, doesn't that tell you about the user? It is really a behavioral thing when you're talking about AI for good or responsible AI, those who...you know, it is ethical AI. It is our values and our ethics. So when you choose to use AI for deepfake and use it to destabilise another human being's life, it is you as a human being and what you believe you want to use, you want to use it for evil. It's not the AI that is good or bad, it is the people that are using it that have good intentions or bad intentions. That's where I see this. 

Till: Do you see a risk that we individualise the debate by that, in a way, that it's in the end the responsibility of the users to see if they do good things with that or bad things with that? While on the other side, we see the systemic changes to our economy, to our lives being implemented by, basically, a few big companies currently, right?

And it's very, very difficult as an individual with high ethical standards to swim against the current of potentially unsustainable business models by big AI companies, for example, right? So how do you see this relationship between kind of the systemic implementation of AI globally; what it does to our lives, our economies and the kind of individual user case, that has the agency to decide in what areas to use AI and not?

Yemi: The institutions have their strategy and the bottom line is the bottom line that they're all after, and they have the stakeholders that they're responsible for, and there is a long debate about the use cases for what they want to use AI for.

They have the capital for them to be able to expand and buy, use infrastructure or even compute power. The individuals have access to the information, the different applications and the software side of AI. So if we're looking at it, we can actually also start to talk about development equaliser.

You know, AI doesn't magically make everyone equal. It equalises access to capability. Today, a small business in Lagos can use AI tools that, five years ago, only multi-national companies could afford, right? A young entrepreneur can access legal advice or marketing expertise or coding assistance, all from the mobile phone.

You know, that is incredibly powerful because it is changing how human beings are beginning to see life and what they have access to. So that means that if you have affordable internet or reliable electricity or relevant local data and policies to go about it, you also have the access and capability that the larger institutions also have.

So when I say development equaliser, I mean it has the potential to sort of level playing ground, democratise opportunities — but only if we can invest in the foundational things, right? So multinationals have capacity and capabilities for the foundational things. However, individuals are able to have access to the information and data and the tools to use on an AI.

Till: But is there also something you're worried about the development, or are you purely optimistic? Because we had, for example in previous episodes, discussed developmental models, right? Also for African countries. And one concern some people, some economists, including for example Fadhel Kaboub from Tunisia originally expressed, is that our economic model globally is often built on raw material exports from African countries and then high-value imports coming back to African countries, but that the value chain is actually not happening there on the ground.

Is there a risk that we repeat this pattern as well with AI, with basically a few American companies attracting incredible amounts of capital and the value also going there? Is that a risk you see, that those are the ones that benefit in the end, or don't you see that concern? 

Yemi: You're correct. Historically Africa, we export our raw materials. Today, one could argue that data is becoming another raw material, right?

If African data is collected here, processed somewhere else, used to train models elsewhere and then sold back to us as finished products, then yes, we would have to ask the difficult questions. And that, for me, is a worry. The evolution of AI and the development of AI is so exponential that we, in Africa, do not have the infrastructure yet that would allow for us to compete effectively.

We're building. The governments recognise that they need to build the infrastructure. And it is only when we have such things that we are in sort of a safe space. But yes, it is correct. We are beginning to look at data colonisation.

The export control directive that came out, the prevention of foreigners to access a new model. Now, is that a level playing ground? No! We're now seeing that it's now becoming a power tool, right? And for us in Nigeria, I think the government last week or two weeks ago, said that all payment systems, financial institutions must have their mandatory data localisation in Nigeria for the financial sector. You understand? So this is a major policy shift.

AI depends on data and if payment data is kept locally, then the central bank is looking at the broader issue of data sovereignty. And that is also what the US is looking at, right? Data sovereignty.

So don't give access because they are looking at the issues of cyber threats and their ability to control certain parts of the models. So really, if we're looking at all of these things, AI is becoming a game changer.

Till: Yeah, no, I agree. I think it's a game changer, absolutely. I think it will be revolutionary. I just think it's not totally clear yet in which direction the revolution will go, right? If it's the developmental equaliser, or if it's reproducing certain patterns of our economic systems that we have seen in the past with regard to inequality, with regard to access, but also with regard to the environmental dimension.

And we see the enormous investments going into data centers, infrastructure is incredible. What comes along with that is an increase of energy usage. We see in many countries still in the world, something that can be described as energy poverty, right? Like, there is little access to energy.

Do you see a potential competition between AI data centers, particularly in certain African countries where there is energy poverty and people still don't have energy access, or is that not a big concern you have? 

Yemi: No, it is a genuine concern. AI consumes enormous computing power and many Africans countries still struggle with reliable electricity. So we have to be very intentional, that as we're building this AI infrastructure, it shouldn't be seen to compete with hospitals.

But I think that, Africa, we are used to leapfrogging. And one of the areas that I see that at this point in time for us is of advantage, is when we begin to look at renewable energy. If we think about renewable energy, it gives Africa the opportunity to build differently from the start, right?

So the data centers now have the solar and the capacity. In the early days the infrastructures will compete and it's really a genuine concern. But as we begin to build these data centers and as we begin to compute, we have the opportunity for using renewable energy. And if we invest wisely, AI infrastructure and clean energy can actually grow together.

So what excites me most, you know, about Africa; I actually think Africa has an advantage. We've built a culture of leapfrogging; you know, we missed the fixed telephone lines. We became leaders in mobile money. We adopted fintech faster than many developed markets. I believe AI presents another leapfrogging giant stride opportunity for us. And we don't have decades of legacy systems like that. We can build digital-first institutions from the beginning. 

Till: You're listening to the Club of Rome Podcast, the place to discover bold ideas from change makers for the world's biggest challenges. This conversation is part of our third season, where we've already spoken to thinkers like Jayati Ghosh on wellbeing economics, Katharina Pistor on law and capitalism, Runa Khan on climate-vulnerable communities, and many more.

Find these episodes and past seasons exploring more big ideas on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Now, back to the discussion.

Till: I want to come to one point, that is, very close to your daily work and your biography. Through Rising Tide Africa, you do empower women to become investors, mentors and leaders in Africa's tech and business ecosystem, right And that's a very important part of your work.

At the same time, you now see a certain tech scene in Silicon Valley that is often described as tech bros. Basically, a handful of men that control the tech business there. Is that something you think about  when you think about AI and the role of women in all of that?

Yemi: I think that, you know, we are male-dominated is the reason why really, Rising Tide's mission came out and it was straightforward to help more women become angel investors so they can see it as an asset class. Today we are much bigger than that. We're helping women become investors, mentors, board members, ecosystem builders and even founders.

So AI is already changing how we are evaluating our businesses and things like that. But the fact still remains that we need to intentionally start to ensure that women are participating in this AI play and not only on the application level, but also at the infrastructure level.

You know, capital hasn't been equally distributed for a long time. Networks haven't been equally distributed. Neither has leadership opportunities for women. So naturally, the AI industry is mirroring these imbalances, right?

But imagine if we as women were building AI and building the infrastructure. The kind of areas we'll be focusing on; maternal health. We'll be looking at education, financial inclusion, care work. Because diversity doesn't just change who builds the technology; it also changes what gets built. So if there are more women in the AI play, it will also change the perspective of what we are building. 

Till: How do you think AI might look different or how would AI look like in, let's say, 20 years, with more female leadership in the field? 

Yemi: We're not going to be lowering the bar in any way, but we are going to help to transform the society; a more rounded society. That's what I think. Because we're gonna be looking at not only the business and the business outcome.

You know, I give example, educational opportunity. Education is a long play. It needs patience, capital and therefore you see that a lot of the finances is not going to the education sector even at this time.

But that is where a lot of women play, right? Financial inclusion. If we look at the demography of those that are in the rural areas at the bottom of the pyramid, you will see that it's predominantly women, right? I think it would be a better society, really.

It would be a lot more impact driven. I'm not saying that we wouldn't make money but you know, the impact would drive the profits rather than the other way around.

Till: And last question for that. In order to achieve this positive vision in 20 years, what decision, what steps do we have to take, now in the next year, in the next two years?

Yemi: We need to start looking at how we can create ecosystems of AI. We need to look at how we can have reliable electricity. We need to have African cloud infrastructure. We need to have the regulations. We need to do that. We need to do a lot in terms of research.

We need African datasets. Every major technological revolution creates different layers of opportunity. We're probably not going to outspend the hyperscalers on foundational models. But the governments of our continent need to start becoming the leaders in applying AI to uniquely African problems. It's not the inventing of the technologies, it's applying it, right? And we do have the opportunity now to take into consideration (and deliberately so) building the AI infrastructure that will take us where we need to be.

Ensuring that we have the computing power, the energy for the future of AI. Ensuring that we localise our data, so data sovereignty. Ensuring that we have control of our data and our datasets. So these are the things that we need to put in place if we want to achieve the long goal.

And also most importantly is the talent. Our people must be well-trained, so that for me would be what we need to be looking at and doing today.

Till: Thank you very much. Thank you very much for laying out some steps of what we need to do now and this topic will accompany us at the Club of Rome more and maybe we speak again, in the future.

Thank you very much for joining the Club of Rome podcast.

Yemi: Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.

Till: You've been listening to my conversation with Yemi Keri, member of the Club of Rome and co-founder of Rising Tide Africa. As you've heard, Yemi is an optimist about the possibilities of AI in Africa, though with caveats about issues like data sovereignty and the need for homegrown infrastructure.

Other Club of Rome members have expressed concerns about the current developments of AI, including ethical questions and what it actually means to be human in these times, about economic consequences of a rapid AI development, including financial bubbles and consequences for the labor market and of course, environmental concerns through the massive use of electricity and water.

Members of the Club of Rome have also recently highlighted the risks of AI in an open letter to the UN Secretary General, calling for a special session of the UN General Assembly dedicated to the governance of artificial general intelligence and warning of AI's existential threat.

We want to hear your thoughts. Is this Africa's chance to leapfrog to a more ethical and sustainable AI revolution, or do we risk a new extractive era, this time in the form of data?

Where do you stand on the AI's risks and rewards and who would you like to hear discussing this central topic of our time? Let us know via email, on the Club of Rome website, in the episode comments or on social media. This is a topic we'll surely be coming back to in future episodes

Thank you for listening to the Club of Rome Podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please do leave a rating or a review and follow us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. You can learn more about the Club of Rome and listen to more podcasts at clubofrome.org