Kenya has dropped seven places in a new global ranking that assesses a country's readiness to adopt technology, data, and infrastructure.
According to the Government Artificial Intelligence Readiness index 2021 by Oxford Insights, Kenya had an overall score of 45.54 a higher score according to 2020's performance of 43.656 but still managed to drop from position 71 to position 78.
Kenya was ranked third best Sub-Saharan African country, behind Mauritius and South Africa. Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire followed Kenya to round up the top five list.
"41 countries from the Sub-Saharan Africa region are represented in this year’s Index. The region’s average score is 31.61 out of 100, the lowest globally with many countries at the lower end of the ranking spectrum," read part of the report.
In terms of Government, the technology sector, data, and infrastructure, Kenya recorded a performance of 57.15, 28.75, and 50.72 respectively.
AI specialist Abdijabar Mohamed noted that Kenya had a tremendous improvement in readiness to adopt Artificial Intelligence despite dropping seven places.
"Kenya has developed an AI task force (consisting of 11 experts from relevant government agencies, the private sector, academia, and other stakeholders) to provide a roadmap for how AI technologies can be applied in the national context. These initiatives can be seen to indicate a move towards more structured governance around AI in the region," read part of the report.
Mohamed also lauded Kenya's decision to change its educational curriculum in order to adopt a more technological-based system. This has been achieved by adopting AI models at various levels of the education system.
"More governments must follow suit. They should encourage initiatives in which AI practitioners, academics, policymakers, and future talent can interact," Mohamed stated.
However, the report also pointed out that Sub-Saharan countries faced numerous challenges such as shortage of talents and inadequate resources in order to adopt Artificial Intelligence.
Countries facing this problem such as Kenya and South Africa were advised to mirror Mauritius in its adoption of a human resource and development council or platforms in order to train students on how to develop AI skills.
"The Human Resource Development Council introduces students ranging from pupils to industry executives to the fundamentals of AI and also helps students at undergraduate and postgraduate levels with scholarships further, specialised training in AI," Mohamed pointed out.
The report, which ranked 160 nations globally, saw the United States of America scoop top position, Singapore came second and the United Kingdom ranked the third.
