How Meta’s Llama technology is empowering social initiatives in Nigeria

In today’s world, technology is not just a tool; it is a bridge to opportunities, knowledge and change. Imagine a classroom where each student’s learning experience is tailored to their unique needs.

Imagine a world where misinformation is tackled quickly and accurately, ensuring the public has access to reliable information. These visions are becoming a reality thanks to Meta’s innovative Llama technology and the innovators who are harnessing its power to drive change in Africa.

Recent advances in AI, and in particular generative AI, have captured the public’s imagination and demonstrated what those developing these technologies have long known: they have the potential to help people do incredible things, create new it was about economic and social opportunities and giving people, creators and companies new ways to express themselves and connect with people.

As part of Meta’s commitment to open science, the company announced the release of Llama (Large Language Model Meta AI) in February 2023, a cutting-edge large language model designed to advance AI research.

Like other large language models, Llama works by taking a sequence of words as input and predicting the next word to generate text recursively. After this initial release, Meta introduced Llama 2, Llama 3, Llama 3.1, and the most recent iteration, Llama 3.2.

Over the past few years, Meta’s Llama models have demonstrated new capabilities, such as generating creative text, solving mathematical theorems, predicting protein structures, and answering reading comprehension questions.

The two largest models in the Llama 3.2 collection, the 11B and 90B, support image reasoning use cases such as document-level understanding, including charts and graphs, image captioning, and substantiation tasks visual, such as directional identification of objects in images based on natural language. descriptions

The lightweight 1B and 3B models are also very capable of generating multilingual text and calling tools. With more than 400 million downloads, businesses are using Llama to create localized educational content, summarize video calls, and provide medical information in low-resource settings.

These projects highlight the significant potential that AI has to benefit billions of people around the world.

As technology continues to evolve, innovative minds across Africa are harnessing its power to address pressing societal challenges and drive meaningful change. Two of these innovators, Dr. Olubayo (Bayo) Adekanmbi and Olasupo Abideen Opeyemi, are at the forefront of this movement, using Meta’s Llama technology to create solutions that have the potential to transform lives in health, education, finance and government digital

Dr. Olubayo (Bayo) Adekanmbi: Harnessing Llama 2 for social good

Olubayo Adekanmbi, CEO of Data Science Nigeria (now known as equalyzAI), is a leading figure in AI research and development. He is passionate about using AI to empower people and bridge the digital divide.

EqualyzAI is building a unique hyperlocal multimodal dataset, models, and APIs that unlock the potential of generative AI for native speakers of dialects in Africa. They focus on creating large language models (LLMs) for African languages ​​that can be adjusted in response to specific needs in health, finance, agriculture and education.

One such innovation is a personalized learning platform, ULearn, built on Llama 2. This platform allows students, teachers and even parents to generate multimedia learning content for elementary science that fits the individual needs of students, enhancing their learning experience and engagement. Imagine personalized lesson plans, flash cards and animated videos tailored to each student’s needs!

This revolutionary approach transforms education from a one-size-fits-all model to a personalized learning journey. Additionally, EqualyzAI empowers women in the marketplace with financial literacy tools, fostering economic growth and community stability.

Its AI-powered healthcare solutions also improve accessibility and coverage, especially in underserved regions.

Olasupo Abideen Opeyemi: Revolutionizing fact-checking with Llama 3

Olasupo Abideen Opeyemi, a youth leader and researcher, is dedicated to harnessing technology for social good. Its focus is on the transformative potential of digital governance to drive positive social change.

Olasupo has developed several civic technology products to improve public participation and digital governance. Among them is MyAIFactChecker, which addresses the critical issue of misinformation by providing accurate and easy-to-use fact-checking capabilities.

MyAIFactChecker leverages Llama 3’s advanced capabilities to effectively tackle the disinformation problem. Llama 3’s state-of-the-art contextual understanding and generative AI capabilities improve the accuracy and relevance of fact-checking.

This user-friendly platform, MyAIFactChecker, supports multiple languages, including local languages ​​French, Swahili and Nigerian, offering a truly inclusive user experience. This multilingual capability, combined with the voice option for fact-checking, breaks down language barriers and provides a more inclusive user experience.

One of the main impacts of MyAIFactChecker is its ability to quickly and accurately assess the validity of claims. Traditional fact-checking methods often struggle with the sheer volume of information and can be slow to respond.

By using Llama 3 and advanced search APIs, MyAIFactChecker automates the process, enabling real-time analysis of claims from a wide range of sources. The advanced contextual understanding and generative capabilities of these models enable the platform to provide detailed and nuanced responses that go beyond simple true/false assessments.

This results in more accurate and informative fact-checking that reflects the complexity of claims.

Their work not only shows the transformative potential of AI, but also underscores the importance of innovative approaches to solving some of the most pressing problems facing Africa today.

Through their efforts, they are paving the way to a future where technology serves as a powerful catalyst for positive social change.