“Can AI help to alleviate poverty in the remote rural areas of Nepal where UMN works? Can it be used as a tool for good?

A pilot project at UMN aims to begin to answer those questions. With the help of a Nepali software engineer, UMN will seek to design and build AI Assistants (Agents) that could offer help in areas such as the following: helping farmers produce and market their crops; assist with disaster prediction and response; provide tutoring to young children; assist adults to become literate; coach communities to pitch projects that they have identified, etc.

Any such AI Assistants which are successfully built will be fully tested at UMN’s headquarters. If they appear to be effective and safe, a decision will be made as to whether to test them in the field.

We have become a global community through the availability of the internet, which now extends into even remote areas of Nepal. Most families in these areas have at least one smart phone. Throughout the world there are many people interested in helping alleviate poverty. Could an AI Assistant be the bridge that links those in need with those willing to help so that poverty is finally defeated?

UMN’s vision is ‘fullness of life for all, in a transformed Nepali society’. Could AI perhaps offer a way, in this generation, to fulfill this vision? UMN could provide the needed bond of trust between donor and recipient – the guarantor which would channel and oversee the use of funds so that donors can be assured their money is used with integrity and effectiveness – but it would be the Nepali communities themselves who would identify their needs and reach out for help.

Every journey starts with a single step and this month, at UMN, we have started a new one, not sure what lies ahead but knowing that, with the prayers of God’s people, and through their love and idealism, anything is possible.”