A global artificial intelligence challenge backed by Amazon Web Services (AWS) has spotlighted African innovation at the intersection of climate action, health, and gender equity — with regional institutions and data scientists taking the lead in developing real-world solutions.
The AI for Equity Challenge, organised by the International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence (IRCAI) under UNESCO and African data science platform Zindi, brought together over 1,300 AI engineers from 90 countries, including Nigeria. Participants competed to design AI-powered tools to support disaster relief and public health, particularly in communities most vulnerable to climate shocks.
Two African institutions — Sokoine University of Agriculture (SUA) in Tanzania and Kuyesera AI Lab in Malawi — were selected during the first round to set the core technical problems for the competition. The SUA Outsmarting Outbreaks Challenge called on experts to predict outbreaks of waterborne diseases in Tanzania that have a disproportionate impact on women and children. Meanwhile, the Kuyesera AI Disaster Damage and Displacement Challenge asked participants to help communities recover from climate disasters by detecting damaged infrastructure using aerial imagery.
During the second round, AI experts and engineers from all over the world were called on to compete on Zindi to build the best models they could to solve the challenges set by the two organisations. Over two months, 1300 AI builders from 90 countries put a combined 63,000 hours of effort towards building cutting edge AI models.
After two months of model-building, the winning solutions came from Mark Landry in the USA and Yisak Berhanu in Ethiopia. Mark leveraged a novel use of vision large models (VLMs) for detecting damaged infrastructure to secure his place while used simple LightGBM models with clever data aggregations to set himself apart.
Both projects used data made available through the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI) and were built using AWS infrastructure and services.
Though no Nigerian team placed first, local engineers were among the thousands of contributors who engaged with the challenge on Zindi’s platform.
“This challenge brought together communities from across Africa and the world to work on pressing sustainability challenges,” said Davor Orlic, COO at IRCAI. “It’s encouraging to see strong contributions coming from the continent — not just in participation, but in setting the agenda.”
The initiative aligns with global development goals, including SDG 3 (Good Health and Well-being), SDG 5 (Gender Equality), and SDG 13 (Climate Action). Beyond the competition, its organisers hope the solutions will be refined and deployed in real-world settings — including in African countries facing rising climate and health risks.
About IRCAI
The International Research Centre on Artificial Intelligence is an AI-dedicated research UNESCO category 2 centre, committed to bridge both artificial intelligence and sustainable development following the UN’s ethical principles in AI and ensuring via any available means be it research, policy or technology, that the public is the main beneficiary of our actions. With a particular focus on equity, inclusion, and diversity, we develop insights, frameworks and tools to help us, the public, and the broader AI community create AI that represents the diversity and development concerns of people across the world.
About Zindi
Zindi is the leading professional network for AI and data science, established with the aim of making data science and artificial intelligence (AI) skills accessible to all.
With a network of over 85,000 data scientists registered on the platform, from more than 180 countries around the world, Zindi helps data practitioners of all levels learn, grow and access professional opportunities while building real-world solutions for global organisations.
About the Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI)
The Amazon Sustainability Data Initiative (ASDI) is a tech-for-good program that is helping researchers, scientists and innovators around the world advance their work on sustainability-related research. The program provides publicly-available access to hundreds of important scientific datasets on the AWS cloud that can be otherwise hard for researchers to access or analyze.
See also: How generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) is leaking companies’ secrets
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