Lessons from GenAI and Learning in Kenya
I love this story from Kenya.
There are eight key points here about your future.
Plus two bonus items.
Fifteen years ago, my tech team at then 321-year-old Aviva PLC built a global KM/Collaboration and comms platform(including massive early 'RAG') that changed the firm. It was done at 1/2 the quoted priced from IBM, with three times thr functionality in 142 days versus their 18 months (547 days).
We used the 'new' Microsoft stack. In his annual investor monologue, Steve Ballmer gave us a lovely, slightly backhanded compliment in his annual investor day monologue. He raved about the speed/innovation/impact and then said if a centuries-old Brit FS company can do this, anyone can!
Your Future / The Kenya Gen AI Story
1. Path to Impact
While they are certainly clever and more determined than most, the path to impact in this piece should stir you/your organization to action. The ease of path and power of impact combo have never been higher in any science or tech domain—seriously, ever.
2. RAG
Building your own goldmine into a Gen AI platform isn't just hugely beneficial. (The goldmine comes from intentionally seeding, growing, and harvesting the information and knowledge outflows from everything you do at your firm, plus the tacit knowledge your experts have).It makes you Evolutionarily Intelligent. Your 'enterprise' gets better, smarter, faster, with a better cost structure - continually. Not knowing what RAG is at this stage would be like missing the invention of gunpowder. Use GenAI to solve that if you need to. It will take 4 minutes.
3. Not Sexy
This case is a GenAI teacher assistant. Impact does not have to be shiny and cool. I would bet my hat that, at a minimum, it improves efficiency by 25%, quality by 30%, and outcomes by 30+ %, narrowing the big historical gap between the current edge of knowledge/learning and what high schools teach. It will make education less episodic and disjointed, which is also a huge win.
4. Plataeu Acceleration
A year into this, they will be on a new plateau with new paths upwards and onwards that were invisible to them prior to this. Where they will be in four years is almost unimaginable. Think about your competition doing that while you aren't.
5. Back to The Future
Once you have some of this dirt under your fingernails and a few learning bumps and bruises, you ask this simple question: If we were building this 'enterprise' today, knowing what we know now, how would we do it differently? Historically, in times of technology step function changes, those who earnestly ask that question and then go and change the model win at a level far beyond the adopters of the new tech. Ford, Rockerfeller, Von Richtoven, Von Moltke, early SEARS, Netflix, Uber.
6. Think in Ecosystems not Chains
This is a great N to Many approach to education. They are considering the ecosystem, which is a net value-adding fabric approach, not a customer-supplier or vertical integration chain model. In a modern, connected, increasingly intelligentized world, ecosystems win. Yes, I invented a word. Everything from commerce to healthcare to warfighting benefits from this approach. Those domains are hampered and seemingly dumb (the opposite of intelligentized) in parts because they evolved in the old way without this new wave of connectivity, data/info, and AI.
7. Journey Talent
I love that concept, mostly because I invented it but also because it works. When you head out on a new journey, you must seed your organization with talent that has been on this journey before and have the real context from real experience. Up top for sure but more down in the trenches. The interesting thing about this example is that you may need only a sprinkling of that. In the 2000s when we changed the structure, mission, culture, win percentage at Motorola we shot 1/3 of the top 120 execs and exited tens of thousands. At scale firms, I still think the hardest aspect of Change Management is that you often have to change management (James I Cash taught me that). The really hard part is when they are good performers.
8. Things Change Faster than You Think - Africa in a Generation / Ukraine
Innovation and model change often spring from places that can leapfrog ahead, don't have a huge legacy overhang, and simply have fewer resources. Addis Ababa is 4 - 6x ahead of Phoenix on EV's for example. If you grew up in the west the version of history we were given constrains Africa's potential in our heads. Just go look up Mansa Musa - richer than Bezos + Musk + Pinault.
P.S.I think the single biggest leapfrog opportunity may be the reinvention of transportation/logistics, healthcare, defense, education, commerce, energy, and talent supply chain that could be post-war Ukraine. I am optimistic that the overly and incorrectly sensitive West unleashes long-range Ukraine and that, combined with the accumulating losses/social impact and winter drudgery on the battlefield, will cause a seismic shift inside Russia.
Two bonus items as promised:
1. Steve Ballmer - go look at his brilliant Facts endeavor...in today's world I love that he is leading that.
2. I heard about this in my daily feed from the smartest , most helpful Gen AI consultancy/advisory/conference folks. https://gaiinsights.com/ check out that feed, the blogs, and the four HBR Gen AI articles (John Sviokla) they have published...THE most useful thing in GenAI today
(thank you both for reading this far ;-))
