Following the rise of digitalization, advanced technological developments have resulted in several countries, including Kenya, modernizing their approach to numerous business sectors, including agriculture and banking. While many startups have focused on the integration of artificial intelligence to maximize profits, others have considered the potential of more remote platforms. Let’s take a closer look at how Kenya has embraced state-of-the-art technology.
Leading the Way in Artificial Intelligence in Africa
Primarily, various aspects of farming are fundamental to Kenya’s economic growth and success, with a wide array of products hitting the global exchange market from here, including coffee, eggs, tea and much more. Because of this, the development and implementation of artificial intelligence in Kenya is increasingly seeking to aid the productivity of local farmers.
Apollo Agriculture, a Nairobi-based technology company, provides small-scale farmers with a vast amount of information that enables them to best maximize their profits. The concept of AI is revolutionary to many African countries, highlighting Kenya’s pivotal role in integrating the latest technological developments and driving the continent into a more convenient tech-centered future. Through the use of satellite data and machine learning, in addition to automated operations to keep down costs using approaches such as the one from Apollo Agriculture and geographic information sensing, Kenya-based farmers are now faced with fewer agriculture-related complications.
Furthermore, Safaricom’s Digifarm also targeting the country’s farming methods and output. While organizations such as this have only recently been founded and their studies remain in the early stages, the hope is that, in time, the AI approach to agribusiness will provide farmers with essential environmental information that will allow for more informed decisions involving when to harvest and plant, alongside advising on the most profitable markets to target.
Remote Developments Altering the Outlook of Various Industries
Aside from Kenya’s integration of artificial intelligence leading Africa into a new digitalized era, the country has also sought to modernize numerous sectors through the potential of mobile platforms. In addition to their focus on the agribusiness element of Kenya, telecoms organization Safaricom is also heavily involved in country’s financial sector. More specifically, in 2019, Safaricom announced a reverse call feature as a way to provide added convenience for those calling customer service from their mobiles, be they related to the banking industry, e-commerce or otherwise.
Moreover, the corporation has, in recent years, created its own chatbot known as Zuri to help subscribers navigate customer service. The virtual assistant is available 24/7 on popular mobile apps such as Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp. The core purpose of this technological advancement is to provide Safaricom’s customers with greater mobile accessibility regarding several different types of transactions related to their bill and other functionality.
Moreover, this mobile-focused approach hasn’t just been limited to customer service over the last few years, with digital operators in various industries also seeking to integrate further remote possibilities into their platforms. For instance, there are now a number of pay-by-phone casinos for South Africa-based players. According to casinos.co.za, this newly-provided method of transactions for online gaming places user safety at its core, as it minimizes the risk of personal information falling into the wrong hands compared to options such as card payments. Additionally, we can see that the approach is mobile-first here too.
A Future with Technology at its Core
Ultimately, the use of advanced technology throughout Africa, and in particular Kenya, is only expected to increase over the coming years, both because of the increased accessibility of tech solutions and of local companies’ eagerness to adopt them. With new developments targeting valuable improvements to some of the country’s principal routes to market, there is no doubt that technology will be central to the long-term growth of Kenya’s economy.