Businesses and nonprofits are finding novel ways to employ artificial intelligence in the developing world, using the tools to improve agriculture yields, infant health care, and entrepreneur earnings, according to speakers at MIT Technology Review's EmTech Digital conference in San Francisco on Tuesday. Solomon Assefa, who oversees IBM's research labs in Kenya and South Africa, said the company has been using AI to more accurately predict crop yields in specific regions, based on shifting weather patterns, soil moisture, and other conditions. This insight into growing conditions has helped local farmers raise financing to expand their operations, or make better decisions about the right seeds, appropriate fertilizer, and ideal times to plant and harvest. Separately, the tech giant's research lab has partnered with a startup, Hello Tractor, that links farmers in need of tractors with owners looking to lease equipment. By forecasting demand for the vehicles, IBM has also helped owners raise money to expand their fleet, boosting their profits, Assefa said.

"I don't think Homo sapiens-type people will exist in 10 or 20 years' time," Getnet Assefa, 31, speculates as he gazes into the reconstructed eye sockets of Lucy, one of the oldest and most famous hominid skeletons known, at the National Museum of Ethiopia. "Slowly the biological species will disappear and then we will become a fully synthetic species," Assefa says. "Perception, memory, emotion, intelligence, dreams--everything that we value now--will not be there," he adds. Assefa is a computer scientist, a futurist, and a utopian--but a pragmatic one at that. He is founder and chief executive of iCog, the first artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Ethiopia, and a stone's throw from the home of Lucy. Their desks are cluttered with electronic components and dismembered robot body parts, from a soccer-playing bot called Abebe to a miniature robo-Einstein.

"I don't think Homo sapiens-type people will exist in 10 or 20 years' time," Getnet Assefa, 31, speculates as he gazes into the reconstructed eye sockets of Lucy, one of the oldest and most famous hominid skeletons known, at the National Museum of Ethiopia. "Slowly the biological species will disappear and then we will become a fully synthetic species," Assefa says. "I believe [we] can inspire the Ethiopian youth to actually get really engaged in AI and feel like it's their thing." "Perception, memory, emotion, intelligence, dreams -- everything that we value now -- will not be there," he adds. Assefa is a computer scientist, a futurist, and a utopian -- but a pragmatic one at that. He is founder and chief executive of iCog, the first artificial intelligence (AI) lab in Ethiopia, and a stone's throw from the home of Lucy.

IBM has opened its 12th global research facility, with the launch of a new center in Johannesburg, South Africa. The lab, the second to be built by the company on the continent, is backed by a ten-year investment program, worth around 60m, which was agreed by the computing firm with the University of the Witswatersrand (Wits), the Department of Trade and Industry, and the Department of Science and Technology. Across Africa, telcos and governments are putting fresh emphasis on stepping up the continent's participation in the space race. IBM's director of research for Africa, Dr Solomon Assefa, said the lab has been opened with unprecedented speed, just 18 months after the company entered into an agreement with local partners. Assefa said the facility will combine industrial research with a startup incubator, working closely with Wits' own entrepreneur accelerator in the same innovation hub, known as the Tshimologong Precinct.