Gates Foundation selects 50 health, development projects to deepen AI access
By Oluwafunke Ishola
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has announced about 50 grant recipients who are developing global health and development solutions for their communities using artificial intelligence (AI) enabled large language models (LLMs).
The foundation made the announcement in a statement on Wednesday, following an overwhelming response to its most recent Grand Challenges request for proposals.
It said the call for proposals specifically targeted researchers and innovators in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs).
According to the foundation, responsible and safe use of AI-driven LLM technology has the potential to help solve some of the world’s toughest health and development challenges.
It, however, said for these models to be useful in LMICs, researchers in LMICs must participate in the design, application, and testing of the technology as it rapidly evolves.
The foundation said that a robust evidence base would fill gaps in access and knowledge about the application of such tools to address problems across LMICs in an equitable way.
It said that the Grand Challenges programme, a family of initiatives, was fostering innovation to solve pressing global health and development problems.
The statement said the foundation received over 1,300 proposals, more than 80 per cent of which were from LMICs, within two weeks of posting its request for proposals.
It noted that the selected projects from 17 LMICs aligned with the foundation’s goal of fostering a global innovation ecosystem in places where it will have the most impact.
“Each recipient will receive up to $100,000 to advance its research project, for a total of five million dollars in grants,” it said.
It said that the findings of these projects would be shared at the Grand Challenges Annual Meeting in Dakar, Senegal, in October.
Also, Ms Juliana Rotich, co-founder of iHub, Nairobi, said, “too often, advances in technology deliver uneven benefits in many parts of the world due to existing patterns of discrimination, inequality, and bias.
“AI is no different, with most of the tools being developed in the Global North using data from lower-resourced regions that is often incomplete or inaccurate.
“To realise the full potential of AI, it must be developed responsibly and ethically, with the needs of the end user in mind. Solutions can be transformative when they are locally inspired,” she said.
Rotich would serve on the foundation’s new AI Ethics and Safety Advisory committee.
Zameer Brey, interim Deputy-Director for Technology Diffusion, Gates Foundation, said local innovators are harnessing the seismic power of AI and LLMs in ways that could be paradigm-shifting for their local communities and beyond.
“We believe the most impactful technological advancements include those that begin and end with the people they affect most,” Brey said.
Also, Kedest Tesfagiorgis, Deputy Director, Global Partnerships and Grand Challenges, Gates Foundation, said that for 20 years, the foundation has sought and seeded innovation to solve the world’s hardest problems.
“We believe that accelerating progress in health and development requires collaboration among innovators from as many disciplines and as many countries as possible,” she said.
Tesfagiorgis said the foundation was eager to continue working with and learning from partners around the world to ensure the benefits of AI are relevant, affordable, and accessible to everyone, especially in LMIC communities, in a manner that upholds safety, ethics, and equity.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that some of the projects include how LLMs can help frontline health workers in India, where one woman dies every 20 minutes in childbirth, and improve the management of high-risk pregnancies.
A project in Nigeria seeks to give critical financial advice through a voice-to text interface to rural women farmers and business owners.
Grand Challenges partners have awarded over 3,600 grants to a diverse pool of problem solvers in more than 100 countries, while at the same time fostering a global innovation ecosystem in places where it will have the most impact. (NAN)(www.nannews.ng)
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Edited by Chinyere Joel-Nwokeoma
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