Zimbabwean billionaire, Econet founder Masiyiwa ventures into Artificial Intelligence business

Prominent Zimbabwean billionaire and Econet Wireless founder Strive Masiyiwa’s Cassava Technology is forming a new Artificial Intelligence (AI) business, Cassava AI.

 

The company says it has partnerships with firms such as Microsoft and Google to service enterprise customers globally.

 

Cassava has trained over 200 staff to help clients adopt Generative AI.

The AI unit will be headed by Ahmed El Beheiry, the group’s AI advisor and a former Chief Executive Officer of Telecom Egypt.

 

Artificial intelligence is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems.

 

Examples of AI applications include expert systems, natural language processing (NLP), speech recognition and machine vision.

 

AI is prevalent across many industries. Automating tasks that don’t require human intervention saves money and time, and can reduce the risk of human error.

 

In its broadest sense, AI is intelligence exhibited by machines, particularly computer systems, it is a field of research in computer science that develops and studies methods and software that enable machines to perceive their environment and use learning and intelligence to take actions that maximize their chances of achieving defined goals.

 

Background, Masiyiwa after working briefly as a telecoms engineer for the state-owned telephone company, he quit his job and set up his own company Econet Wireless from saving amount of US$75 monthly from his salary.

 

Some of the key businesses that he established with partners included Econet Wireless International, Econet Global, Mascom Wireless Botswana, Econet Wireless Nigeria (now Airtel Nigeria), Econet Satellite Services, Lesotho Telecom, Econet Wireless Burundi, Rwanda Telecom, Econet Wireless South Africa, Solarway, and Transaction Processing Systems (TPS).

 

The company he created is known to have operations and investments across Africa plus the United Kingdom, Europe, US, Latin America, and New Zealand, United Arab Emirates, and China.

 

Zwnews