In my last post, I announced the start of the PCC funded “AI for Good Pilot Project” at the UMN office in Kathmandu (Thapathali). We have changed the name of the project to: “AI for Poverty Reduction in Rural Nepal” to make it more descriptive of what we are trying to accomplish.

A big first step was to retain a Nepali AI engineer to assist us in designing, building, and testing an AI Agent which would help a rural villager identify and apply for government entitlements. If we are able to build a workable model, it can then be expanded into other areas such as health, education and disaster preparedness and response.

After searching relevant databases, ChatGPT identified someone as the most qualified Nepali AI Engineer. It recommended that we hire him immediately if he was available – and we did! We were delighted to learn, when we interviewed him that he also shares our idealism and enthusiasm about the project. Not only that, he also lives in rural Nepal (in a village near Butwal) and understands the challenges of introducing AI in a rural context. Further, he has experience dealing with voice interfaces which will be helpful if we implement a further phase of the project (this initial phase will be text based).

So it’s full speed ahead. We are aiming to complete the pilot phase by mid-June. At that point UMN’s leadership will decide if it is worth testing our AI Agent in the field – and we will do so only if we conclude it is safe and reliable.

Please pray that as project manager, I will provide the right kind of leadership to the project and that it will result in the building of an AI Agent that will help reduce poverty in rural Nepal.”