Artificial Intelligence In Nigeria Is An Infant Space With Huge Potential

In Nigeria (and Africa), the proliferation of artificial intelligence is very much still in its infancy thanks to several problems ranging from a lack of adequate infrastructure to cultural and socio-economic barriers to adoption. But that doesn't mean Africa is taking a backseat and'unlooking'. As far back as 2008, South African company BrandsEye was already using a proprietary mix of search algorithms, crowdsourcing and machine learning to mine online conversations for sentiment and provide that data to enterprise customers. Also, Egyptian startup Affectiva, launched in 2009 by Rana El Kaliouby, uses emotion recognition to detect moods and make decisions based on facial expressions and has raised $34 million in venture capital till date. In Nigeria, the space is heating up, slowly but surely.