對于渴望從非洲創新革命中獲利的公司和投資者來說,要牢記一件很重要的事情:全球人口規模第二的大陸并不是鐵板一塊。
“當我們討論非洲時,經常體會不到非洲多樣性的細微之處。”6月3日在倫敦舉辦的《財富》全球最具影響力的商界女性峰會上,Facebook的非洲區負責人努努·尼辛基拉表示。后來她補充說,非洲有54個國家和約2000種語言,“問題和機遇都是多樣化的”。
尼辛基拉表示,Facebook作為科技公司,在非洲的最大目標是把人們帶入互聯網。Facebook在非洲大陸擁有1.45億用戶,通過手機訪問的用戶比例高于其他任何地區。“從根本上說,非洲的互聯水平仍然不夠。”她補充說,非洲的潛力部分在于人口比較年輕,城市也非常密集。
就像在世界上其他地區一樣,Facebook在非洲也在努力應付平臺上虛假錯誤傳播的問題。“虛假信息在全世界都是很重要的話題,我們承擔了重大責任。” 尼辛基拉說。“我認為永遠沒法說,問題終于解決了。”她表示,公司通過當地各種合作伙伴查驗事實,審核內容,也越發擅長利用人工智能在內容發布前檢測違反政策的不當言論。
Ovanba Solutions的聯合創始人及總裁維奧拉·盧艾琳也將人工智能當成重要工具,Ovanba Solutions主要為非洲和其他新興市場的中小企業提供短期資本。該公司創建了開發了聊天機器人,幫助不熟悉傳統商業術語的客戶。“金融包容性方面,不管技術多先進,如果客戶沒法互動就屬于浪費時間。”她說。
聊天機器人會問一些問題,比如上周你賣了多少貨物,剩下多少存貨,而不是問當前的資產負債表狀況,盧埃林說,勾畫出企業的財務狀況很容易,而且不必讓客戶走進銀行戰戰兢兢地填寫申請表。
“如果用對方聽得懂的語言交談,”她說,“將可能獲得很多數據存儲庫里沒有的細節,因為非洲經常被看輕和低估。”(財富中文網) 譯者:馮豐 審校:夏林 |
For companies and investors eager to profit from Africa’s innovation revolution, there’s one key thing to keep in mind: The world’s second-most populated continent is far from monolithic.
“It’s so often that when we discuss Africa, we don’t get the granularity of the diversity of the region,” said Nunu Ntshingila, Facebook’s head of Africa, speaking from Fortune’s Most Powerful Women International summit in London on Monday. With 54 countries and some 2,000 languages, “the problems and the opportunities are equally diverse,” she later added.
Ntshingila said that as a technology company, Facebook’s biggest aim in Africa is to bring people online. Facebook has 145 million users on the continent with the highest percentage accessing the social media site via mobile phone compared to any other region in the world. “Fundamentally, we still have a region that is under-connected,” she said, adding that part of Africa’s potential is its young population and highly dense cities.
Just like in every other region of the world, Facebook in Africa is struggling with the spread of misinformation on its platform. “I think it’s been a huge topic around the world and one we take huge responsibility for,” Ntshingila said. “I don’t think we’ll ever get to a place where we say, finally we’ve sorted it out.” She said the company does fact checking through various partners in the region, content moderation, and is getting better at using A.I. to detect inappropriate speech that goes against its policies before they post.
Viola Llewellyn, co-founder and president of Ovamba Solutions—which provides small and medium enterprises in Africa and other emerging markets with short-term capital—is also using A.I. as a critical tool. The company created a chatbot to assist customers who might not be fluent in traditional business terms. “When it comes to financial inclusion, no matter how sexy technology is, if customers can’t interact with it, it’s a bit of a waste of time,” she said.
By asking questions such as how much did you sell last week and what is leftover, rather than what is your current balance sheet, Llewellyn said that you can create the financial picture of a company without requiring a customer go into a bank where they might feel intimidated in filling out an application form.
“If you start to talk to someone in their own language,” she said, “you’ll get the detail that a lot of the data repositories just don’t keep because Africa is frequently undercounted and underestimated.” |