The B&M Gates Foundation is pledging $40 million in investment to help develop an AI platform in Africa at the 2023 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting.
The Grand Challenges 2023 annual meeting was held at CICAD in Diamniadio, confirming the strong partnership between Senegal and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, whose Regional Office for West and Central Africa is based in Senegal .
According to its foundation, this upcoming investment falls under its recent interest in financing technological innovation in low- and middle-income countries, particularly as it relates to AI. In August 2023, it announced that it would spend USF 5 million to finance nearly 50 AI projects in said countries.
Bill Gates said: ”We recently awarded Grand Challenges grants to 50 innovators in low- and middle-income countries to pilot different approaches to AI. Many of you are here today. I am hopeful that you will generate knowledge and develop technologies that will help realize the potential of AI in global health. We’ll talk about it again tomorrow during a session.”
The $40 million pledged aims to increase funding for global health research and development. The goal is to make the next wave of scientific and technological breakthroughs relevant and accessible to everyone.
