17/10/2025
🌍 AI + Education: Signals from the Global South
The next wave of AI transformation in education isn’t coming from Silicon Valley; it’s coming from Sierra Leone, Djibouti, Pakistan, and India.
Here’s what’s really shifting:
🔹 AI as infrastructure: In Sierra Leone, teachers are using AI over the internet; it’s cheaper, faster, and more relevant to their classrooms. (arXiv)
🔹 Localized learning: West Africa’s “Kwame for Science” AI tutor now supports 750+ students across 32 countries. (arXiv)
🔹 Mother-tongue models: Orange + Meta are training AI in African languages; Google invested $37M in African AI centers. (Reuters, Google)
🔹 Training the trainers: Morocco’s DigiSchool 2025 and Djibouti’s new AI Inspectorate Program are skilling teachers and education leaders. (TechAfrica News)
🔹 Equity-led strategy: Pakistan’s AI plan prioritizes women and children, with GIKI + MindHYVE leading curriculum integration and Raaji chatbot empowering rural women. (Dawn, Yahoo Finance, AI for Good)
🔹 Trust over hype: South Korea just halted its $850M AI textbook project; proof that technology must follow pedagogy, not the other way around. (Rest of World)
🔹 Access as advantage: EY & Microsoft’s AI Skills Passport is giving India’s youth free access to applied AI learning. (Times of India)
🔹 A new AI epicenter is emerging and it’s not in Silicon Valley.
Google’s $15 billion investment in an AI hub and data-center complex in Visakhapatnam marks a historic moment for the Global South.
💠We must remember true progress isn’t about faster tech, it’s about deeper trust, access, and inclusion.