AI's next frontier isn't where you might expect | Hardy Pemhiwa

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 23 December 2025

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

With a billion mobile phone users and a median population age of 19, Africa isn't catching up to the AI revolution — it's writing an entirely different playbook, says business leader Hardy Pemhiwa. He shows how a generation of entrepreneurs is using AI to teach classes, triage patients and boost farm yields through the power of local compute, local data and local languages.

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0:00.0	You're listening to TED Talks Daily, where we bring you new ideas to spark your curiosity
0:11.4	every day. I'm your host, Elise Hew. One question being asked across the world right now is,
0:17.4	will AI take my job? It's a valid question and fear. But can you imagine a world where
0:24.1	AI actually helps increase opportunities? In his talk, Hardy Pemiwa, whose company is helping to bring
0:30.9	broadband internet to all of Africa, tells us why developing AI infrastructure in Africa will help
0:37.0	to multiply and amplify human capacity on the continent.
0:41.5	He says the right question to ask is,
0:43.8	when will the world catch up to what Africa is doing with AI?
0:57.9	I've been meeting a lot of people of late who ask me this question.
1:03.5	When will Africa catch up to the AI revolution?
1:08.9	And I look at them with a lot of humility,
1:12.8	and I say to them you're asking the wrong question.
1:17.4	And, of course, a lot of them look at me with surprise.
1:20.8	I say, here is the right question.
1:28.3	When will the world catch up to what Africa is doing with AI?
1:35.3	But before I dive into AI, you've heard a lot about AI, let me take you on a geography lesson.
1:40.3	Africa is big.
1:51.0	It's 54 countries, 1.6 billion people.
1:55.0	And Africa is young.
1:59.0	I'm one of the older ones.
2:01.6	And I consider myself young.
2:08.6	These are digital natives, incredible digital skills.
	...

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