[dropcaps style=’2′]It has been four decades since “Lucy”, the name given to mankind’s earliest descendant, was discovered in Africa. In 2014, her native continent will be visited by Watson (IBM’s supercomputer) in hopes to discover viable solutions to the lands challenges including health care, education, water and sanitation, human mobility and agriculture.[/dropcaps]
This 10 year project will cost $100 million will involve IBM researchers in Africa, together with their business and academic partners. They will use Watson and IBM related cognitive technologies to learn and discover what is the cause of the problems as well as propose ways to fix them by using data collected by the researchers.
IBM researcher, Kamal Bhattacharya, said that Africa has been a great (yet difficult) story as a growing society. Still, there are hurdles to get through which stems from a vast population growth, lack of potable water, untreated diseases, disease, difficulties in agriculture and many other factors from national and village levels.
Uprising patterns and discoveries relating to new correlations in these matters will be found and sorted using Watson’s cognitive capabilities. This will hold massive amounts of opportunities for growth and multiple field stability in Africa. The best case scenario is that in the next decade we will see the dawn of a new Africa. One with technology used in the foundations and hopefully one without hardship.