IBM is launching a 10-year initiative to bring Watson and other cognitive computing systems to Africa. Dubbed “Project Lucy”, the company intends investing US$100m in the initiative, giving scientists and IBM partners access to advanced cognitive computing technologies.
The announcement marks the first initiative of IBM’s newly formed $1bn Watson Group.
Watson involves systems and software that are not programmed, but, as IBM puts it, “actually improve by learning so they can discover answers to questions and uncover insights by analysing massive amounts of big data”.
“Named after IBM founder Thomas J Watson, IBM Watson was developed in IBM’s Research labs. Using natural language processing and analytics, Watson processes information akin to how people think, representing a major shift in an organisation’s ability to quickly analyse, understand and respond to big data.”
IBM has made Watson available as a cloud-based development platform, allowing developers to build applications using cognitive computing intelligence.
Watson technologies will be deployed from IBM’s new Africa Research laboratory in Kenya, providing researchers with resources to help them develop commercial solutions in health care, education, water and sanitation, human mobility and agriculture, the company said.
IBM will establish a pan-African Centre of Excellence for Data-Driven Development, or CEDD, and is recruiting research partners including universities, development agencies and start-ups.
“Big data technologies have a major role to play in Africa’s development challenges: from understanding food-price patterns, to estimating GDP and poverty numbers, to anticipating disease — the key is turning data into knowledge and actionable insight,” IBM said in a statement.
Through the Project Lucy initiative, IBM partners will be able to tap experts at its 12 global laboratories and its new Watson business unit.
“Nearly three years after its triumph on the television quiz show Jeopardy, IBM has advanced Watson from a game-playing innovation into a commercial technology. The company recently established a new Watson business unit dedicated to the development and commercialisation of cognitive computing innovations and is investing more than $1bn to bring cognitive applications and services to market,” it said.
IBM has also announced other investments in Africa, including new Innovation Centres in Nigeria, Morocco and South Africa. The centres are meant to “fuel an ecosystem of development and entrepreneurship around big data and analytics and cloud computing in the region”. — (c) 2014 NewsCentral Media
