Corporate leaders urged to embrace AI
DAR ES SALAAM: TANZANIA’s corporate leaders have been urged to embrace new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) to improve their performance in the current digital age.
The Tanzania Communications Regulatory Authority (TCRA) Director General, Dr Jabiri Bakari, told participants at a high-level forum in Dar es Salaam at the weekend that institutions should not fear AI but instead leverage its transformative potential.
In a presentation at a roundtable organised by the Institute of Directors Tanzania, Dr Bakari explained that AI is not a new phenomenon, noting it evolved from developments in computing and internet systems and was a theory for creating computer systems capable of performing tasks requiring human intelligence.
AI involves more advanced algorithms and logic, leading to situations where systems start behaving like human beings and even excel beyond, he said.
“This is just a more advanced form of the same set of instructions in the name of software and programmes. But we should always not forget that all these are made by human intelligence, which has to be prepared,” he said.
Dr Bakari explained that technological developments are historical and that the current information age will live and pass just as the Stone, Iron and Industrial Ages did.
He emphasised that digital transformation is cross-sectoral. Programmes in agriculture, transport infrastructure, mining, education and health should implement digital readiness standards, he explained.
“This means if we plug well the infrastructure and build the applications, the software and the programmes we can go into all sectors,” he said.
He showed how applying technologies in all sectors could transform economies. He quoted an International Telecommunication Union (ITU) report showing that a 10 per cent increase in the use of technology in the various sectors grows the Gross Domestic Product GDP) by 2.5 per cent every move.
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Dr Bakari briefed the participants on TCRA’s programme to promote subjects that facilitate the digital economy – science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM).
TCRA also promotes digital clubs; from kindergarten to university level.
“If we don’t put the right dose at that level, we cannot have a mathematician at the university level, neither at the advanced level, not even at the secondary level,” he said.
TCRA sponsored Tanzania’s 5 participants in this year’s African secondary school mathematics competition held in South Africa in August 2024.
Three of them were awarded bronze medal. They are Ambrose George Rutashobya of Iyunga Technical School, Zakaria Mataiga Mwita of Azania and Stella Ludan Maliti of Marian Girls. Stella won two medals and was declared “Queen of Mathematics.”
