The FARM CEO (Issue 88): Making Africans Believe “We” Can Also Do Artificial Intelligence and Deep Technology in Africa [Moroccan tech entrepreneur/Former Microsoft Employee (Badr Idrissi) Reveals Greatest Obstacle to Selling Drones He Builds to Combat Illegal Fishing & Poaching Is Getting Fellow Africans to BELIEVE He Can Do It Like It’s Done in the USA!]

Last week, crazily erratic connectivity stopped me from sending out the Farm CEO issue’s interesting feature titled “Moroccan tech entrepreneur (Badr Idrissi) has a solution to combat illegal fishing”

Here is it now…

Beyond the impressive feat Idrissi (who once worked with Microsoft) achieved by developing drones to track illigal fishing and poaching, the highlight of that news report, for me, is the paragraph reproduced below:

“The toughest situation we find ourselves in today is making Africans believe that we can do artificial intelligence and deep technology in Africa – and that we can do what is done in the US. Many people had doubts about whether we could do it or not… We face those questions. So yes, the toughest situation we face is when talking with public figures and they say something along the lines of this not being something that people like us can do in Morocco or Africa.” – Badr Idrissi, the Morrocan tech entrepreneur interviewed in the news report.

The issue he raised in the above statement reflect the predominantly NEGATIVE mental attitude that many creatives in this part of the world (Africa) have to deal with from most of their fellow Africans – not just the public figures.

I say this as one who has been at the receiving end of it countless times from various quarters – and that regardless of the supposed level of education or exposure of the person(s) I had to relate with!

Africans generally (even some of those in Diaspora who’ve seen enough to know/act better!) often find it so hard to BELIEVE that a fellow African can be so good as to INNOVATE and CREATE at the same, talk less higher level to that done by people in non-African advanced societies.

Only when the particular gifted individual is “lucky” to get his/her work “endorsed” as good by non-African, often white skinned others recognised as expert authorities, do our people generally accord that individual any significant respect or recognition!

That negative mental attitude is what holds us back – since it prevents our GENIUSES from getting the support they need from us to create solutions that can DEVELOP us!.

This needs to change – especially in our agriculture industry, where we have so much we need to improve and our problems are so unique that foreigners cannot evolve solutions suited to our needs as well as WE CAN do by ourselves.

This is why we struggle to find software from “abroad” that fully meet the unique needs of our local agribusinesses!

I say this as one who had my work put down for YEARS mainly/firstly by those who knew me, and were closest to me, and then later in larger society – BEFORE I used my stubbon persistence and blind faith to literally create a lucrative marketing for my Excel-VB software Development and Web Marketing Systems Development support service.

If we change our attitudes to the efforts by gifted people among us to introduce groundbreaking innovations, our continent will develop to match others in no time at all!

Moroccan tech entrepreneur has a solution to combat illegal fishing byKate Douglas on’10 July 2017′

Badr Idrissi

As a young child growing up in Morocco, Badr Idrissi would regularly take apart his household’s television or VCR in an effort to understand how it worked – often to the frustration of his family.

His love for technology later drove him to complete a telecommunications engineering degree, and work at global giants such as Microsoft, Nokia and Siemens.

Idrissi is a 2017 Innovation Prize for Africa finalist for developing pioneering artificial intelligence software to manage the operations of environment-defending drones. The venture was inspired by his concern about the environmental and ecological threats (such as illegal fishing, poaching and deforestation) facing many African countries. For instance, a large percentage of fishing activities off the West African coast are illegal, resulting in huge economic losses.

Continue reading…

https://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/moroccan-tech-entrepreneur-solution-combat-illegal-fishing/59150/