By M.G. Zimeta
October 20 saw the launch of KOOMPI, a Cambodian “home-grown” laptop, at BarCamp Association of Southeast Asian Nations 2018, the annual regional expo for tech start-ups. The laptop is distinctive for running alone on Open Source platforms hence that production costs are kept depression together with the device is affordable, together with hence that owners without a background inwards computing tin john “hack” the platforms together with locomote “super-users.” KOOMPI is already doing marketplace testing inwards Myanmar together with exploring bringing the production to other regional markets such equally Japan, Brunei, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Laos, together with the Philippines. KOOMPI may live a regional first, but it’s non the only exciting local tech excogitation coming out of Cambodia. Just a couplet of months previously, Cambodia.AI was launched yesteryear regional start-up Slash.co, fostering a community of coders inwards Kingdom of Cambodia working on Open Source algorithms together with pro bono projects. One such projection is developing AI capability for the country’s EWS1294 overflowing detection system, managed yesteryear People In Need, to potentially seat “false positive” alarms together with predict overflowing chance too. The timing is apposite: Just lastly calendar month the World Economic Forum Association of Southeast Asian Nations summit focused on the “Fourth Industrial Revolution” of the enterprise economic scheme together with data-enabled digital technologies such equally AI, together with its implications for the region.
A close-up of a sensor used inwards Cambodia’s overflowing detection system. Photo yesteryear Nickie Mariager-Lam/People In Need.
These are exciting developments inwards a province that for many years has been defined yesteryear its humanitarian crises. “‘NGO World’ had taken over the Cambodian brand,” KOOMPI’s co-founder, 31-year-old Rithy Thul, said to me, “but inwards the lastly decade the province has moved away from that.”
“For a long time, the narrative around Kingdom of Cambodia was around stuff sweatshops together with tourism,” Andries De Vos, CEO of Slash.co, told me. “But that’s something the younger generation are changing.”
In fact some of Cambodia’s structural features, which mightiness direct maintain been weaknesses inwards traditional industrial models, mightiness truly live strengths when it comes to adapting to the “Fourth Industrial Revolution.” But what could this hateful for the key players that volition shape how data, AI together with digital technologies are developed, together with the values that volition shape their global governance?
Workforce Revolution
Perhaps the most obvious structural challenge Kingdom of Cambodia faces is the loss of its middle degree inwards the Central Khmer Rouge era of the belatedly 1970s. Under Pol Pot’s regime, around a quarter of the population died through starvation, forced labor, together with political purges equally the Central Khmer Rouge tried to transform Kingdom of Cambodia into a socialist agrarian economy. Highly-skilled professionals amongst a formal education, such equally doctors together with teachers, were particularly targeted because they were perceived equally threats to the regime’s command of the population.
But the Fourth Industrial Revolution is allowing the province to overturn conventional thinking nigh its demographic profile. The loss of the traditional elite “means at that topographic point is less dogma nigh how things should live done, together with fewer entrenched interests,” De Vos observed. “A lot of the historic Cambodian elite lost their condition during the Central Khmer Rouge era, together with nosotros are seeing to a greater extent than ‘rags to riches’ stories at nowadays – which people hither bring out inspiring together with empowering.”
“From a tech perspective, Kingdom of Cambodia is an exciting seat to live correct now,” said Yohan Brizolier, co-founder of Geeks In Cambodia. “The demographic skew agency at that topographic point is an unusually high proportion of ‘digital natives.’ Cambodia’s youthful together with increasingly well-educated population is passionate together with energetic when it comes to tech adoption – it feels similar every twenty-four hr menstruum a novel start-up or hackathon or incubator programme is position inwards motion.”
Brizolier’s together with De Vos’ observations are borne out yesteryear Thul’s ain story, together with the vision behind KOOMPI. “Many immature people inwards Kingdom of Cambodia direct maintain to figure out what they desire to exercise at nowadays without purpose models,” Thul said to me. “I came from the countryside together with studied English linguistic communication at academy for 2 years earlier leaving to pursue self-education instead. I had no background inwards figurer scientific discipline – my get-go experience of the cyberspace was inwards 2005, together with my get-go experience of LINUX was inwards 2007. KOOMPI is designed to encourage curiosity together with learning yesteryear doing.”
An promotion for KOOMPI, Cambodia’s home-grown laptop, from the company’s Facebook page.
Much of the scrap nigh the demeanour upon of the Fourth Industrial Revolution on the labor marketplace has focused on the way emerging technologies mightiness terminate human labor. But they could also heighten together with develop a workforce such equally Cambodia’s.
“Data-enabled digital technologies such equally AI are a huge chance for countries similar Cambodia, where skilled labor is inwards brusk supply, to access expertise beingness developed elsewhere,” said Dr Ekkehard Ernst, principal of the Macroeconomic Policy Unit at the International Labor Organization.
In Malaysia, Dr. Helmi Zakariah, CEO of the locally-developed AI epidemiologist AIME, described how the engineering had leveled out local inequalities inwards access to specialist skills. “Epidemiology is a specialism inside world wellness inwards Malaysia that struggles to recruit for a publish of reasons,” Zakariah explained. “But when districts direct maintain unequal access to expertise for managing resources together with developing strategy, this tin john exercise regional wellness inequalities. AIME allows districts that don’t direct maintain their ain epidemiologists to exercise goodness from sophisticated analysis.”
“These technologies could also potentially allow lower-skilled staff to accept on novel roles together with responsibilities inwards relation to the engineering itself,” Ernst added. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 goodness regional instance of this is Sri Lanka’s District Nutrition Monitoring Service (DNMS), a mobile app-based scheme to monitor nestling nutrition inwards the community, which won the 2016 United Nations World Summit Award for Best App inwards Health. “We chose to develop an app-based scheme because it would live tardily to acquire to use,” Dr. Pamod Amarakoon, who led the evolution together with deployment, told me. “Elderly midwives amongst express experience of smartphones were able to acquire assist amongst the engineering from their teenage relatives, who enjoyed sharing their expertise. This engineering also allowed the midwives to function inwards a less bureaucratic, to a greater extent than hands-on way amongst families, which both appreciated.”
Coding Culture
Another structural challenge Kingdom of Cambodia faces is its size together with unique Central Khmer language. “Cambodia is a modest province compared to its neighbors,” Brizolier observed. “The population of Vietnam is around xc ane G 1000 together with Thailand around lxx million, but Kingdom of Cambodia is around xvi million. Additionally, some 65 per centum of Cambodians haven’t studied English.”
But these features may live assets when it comes to adapting to the Fourth Industrial Revolution. “Because it’s a modest marketplace amongst a really dynamic immature population, you lot tin john examine your ideas easily together with acquire high demeanour upon quite quickly,” De Vos explained. “In some ways it’s preferable to somewhere larger but to a greater extent than stagnant.”
Cambodia.AI’s portfolio of projects includes ane designed to celebrate Central Khmer itself – a Natural Language Processing scheme that volition bring out ancient Khmer-language script inwards Angkor Wat, the temple complex inwards Siem Reap inwards northward Cambodia, together with analyze it. “There are only a few specialists inwards the ground who tin john read those writings,” De Vos said, “and they’re typically based inwards affluent countries. So supporting Cambodian software engineers to unlock the country’s heritage using AI allows us to contribute to the culture.”
The country’s distinctive Central Khmer linguistic communication has also meant that Open Source – or OS – coding together with software, such equally the platform KOOMPI is based on, are well-integrated inwards the country’s engineering ecosystem. “I started KhmerOS inwards 2003 when I came to Cambodia,” Javier Sola, programme manager at the Open Institute, told me. “There was no software inwards Central Khmer then, hence the aim was to interpret OS software into Khmer. We also developed a laid of basic computing tools together with software inwards Central Khmer itself. Now inwards Cambodian schools the information technology textbooks endorsed yesteryear the Ministry of Education refer to this OS software rather than Microsoft, because it’s the only software inwards Khmer.”
Cambodia’s anchoring inwards OS also agency the province is well-positioned to participate inwards the global AI network, which has a flourishing OS community at its core. Contemporary AI is characterized yesteryear machine learning techniques, where software essentially teaches itself rules together with patterns from data. It’s a engineering that is ripe for misrepresentation, hype together with overselling – but this tin john live countered through a sort of self-assessment inside the coding community. “OS creates a to a greater extent than trustworthy production yesteryear allowing the code to live validated, together with worked on yesteryear a large together with vibrant international community of world-class coders,” Dr. Kirstie Whitaker, enquiry swain at the Alan Turing Institute told me. “Making your code OS also agency goodness developers tin john run into that you’re doing something interesting, together with volition desire to come upwards together with function for you.”
This OS civilisation allows Cambodian start-ups together with developers to forthwith access the thriving international tech ecosystem on equal ground equally tech giants together with graduates inwards advanced economies. “Building a tech society is a state of war for talent,” De Vos confirmed, “and this has informed our strategy inwards Cambodia. One of our projects is KhmerML, a highly technical, sophisticated projection similar to Google’s AutoML. We wanted to demonstrate what our Cambodian squad tin john do, together with nosotros wanted it to live useable yesteryear others – hence nosotros made it OS.”
This OS civilisation also positions Cambodia’s tech ecosystem to adjust readily to AI. Sola explained how OS technologies such equally KOOMPI, or the software used inwards Cambodian schools, tin john live amplified through AI to a greater extent than easily because the technology’s code together with the AI code are both OS. “You tin john locomote into the code of an OS platform or package, add together some AI, together with and hence give it dorsum to the projection massively enhanced. The OS ground allows us to advance much quicker amongst tech evolution together with integration.”
Making It New
As a post-conflict nation, emerging from decades of civil war, Kingdom of Cambodia faces limitations on its country-wide infrastructure. But gaps inwards nascent systems tin john nowadays a unique chance to nowadays amongst digital technologies such equally AI.
“It was assumed that economical evolution required industrial infrastructure,” Zakariah said to me. “But the Fourth Industrial Revolution offers the possibility for whatever province to exactly leapfrog infrastructure development.”
“When a national healthcare infrastructure has non even hence been developed, you lot tin john usage novel approaches that are quicker, cheaper, together with to a greater extent than efficient than traditional ones,” agreed Dr. Michael Edelstein, consultant enquiry swain at the Center for Global Health Security at Chatham House. “In the land of vaccination, for example, integrating novel technologies at the outset instead of equally an add-on to an existing framework has helped countries inwards low-resource settings to implement world wellness programs that perform at to the lowest degree equally good equally some high-income countries.”
There are indications of this appetite for excogitation inwards resources administration inwards Cambodia’s wellness system. In Phnom Penh, Sihanouk Hospital Center of HOPE was established equally an international charity amongst a creative operating model: the infirmary receives international donations of medicine together with equipment, together with only charges patients for tending that draws on resources that the infirmary had to purchase; if diagnosis or handling is undertaken amongst donated resources, together with hence the patient isn’t charged.
In Sihanouk Hospital, radiologists pose amongst ane of 2 donated X-ray machines. Photo yesteryear M.G. Zimeta.
The emerging infrastructure also agency organizations from the private together with not-for-profit sector tin john contribute inwards innovative ways. “We are investing heavily inwards helping to develop people inwards Kingdom of Cambodia inwards AI,” De Vos told me. “As a commercial organization, nosotros direct maintain to live proactive together with creative nigh compensating for gaps inwards local education. It’s non exactly philanthropy on our business office – it’s also our way of finding the best local talent.”
In the information economy, Open Development Cambodia has grown to locomote an of import resources inwards Cambodia’s civic tech ecosystem, occupying a strategic seat that mightiness otherwise live a authorities responsibility. “In Kingdom of Cambodia at that topographic point isn’t a fundamental portal or website for data, together with nosotros don’t direct maintain liberty of information laws,” Try Thy, ODC’s executive manager told me. “Open information empowers communities together with ensures investors of unlike sizes direct maintain the same information. So nosotros centralize the information from authorities together with civil lodge together with other stakeholders, together with acquire inwards accessible to anyone. The authorities also uses our resources because ministries may non automatically percentage information amongst each other, but they give their information to us.”
Limitations inwards information administration capacity direct maintain also created opportunities for excogitation inwards the engineering itself. De Vos told me nigh an AI Natural Language Processing toolkit beingness developed yesteryear Cambodia.AI to “read” together with analyse newspaper records written inwards Khmer. “We are running this equally a social projection because it volition unlock a broad gain of commercial together with social applications, equally good equally exercise datasets that tin john live used equally the basis of novel AI systems here.”
Data Cultures
A lastly structural challenge of countries similar Cambodia, which could live an wages for adapting to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, may also the most controversial. Recent rapid developments inwards AI direct maintain been made possible yesteryear the advent of “big data,” which is outpacing traditional information governance legislation. In countries such equally Kingdom of Cambodia where infrastructure is beingness established, the relevant legal frameworks for information governance mightiness non even hence live inwards place. In fact, governance civilisation itself mightiness non even hence live established: Earlier this twelvemonth Cambodia’s national elections were widely criticized yesteryear the international community. But “I’ve worked inwards Europe together with Asia, together with noticed cultural differences inwards attitudes to powerfulness structures,” De Vos said. “The emphasis inwards Asia is on economical agency rather than political agency. The authorities hither is economically progressive together with witting of the country’s standing inwards an increasingly-integrated ASEAN. There are dynasties inwards Europe too, but much to a greater extent than subtle together with to a greater extent than deeply entrenched.”
Some tell the lack of legal framework could live an chance to pioneer. “We direct maintain huge opportunities, together with the correct tools, to avoid the mistakes of developed economies,” Dr. Divine Ndonbi Banyubala, deputy registrar of Ghana’s Medical together with Dental Council, told me. “It is for the local people to examine their values together with identity, together with determine how to adjust legal together with governance frameworks that they mightiness direct maintain inherited inwards a colonial era, but that exercise non facilitate their evolution or jibe comfortably inwards their ain context.”
Collectivist cultures, such equally those that dominate inwards the Global South, mightiness also live improve placed to develop frameworks together with legislation suitable for the “big data” age. “There isn’t such an emphasis on privacy here,” De Vos observed, “which agency that when it comes to sharing information or trying out a novel technology, at that topographic point is less friction.”
“Our collectivist civilisation agency that many of our activities are directed towards realising communal goals,” Banyubala told me. “If the community understands that information is shared for collective interests, they cooperate. It’s easier to shipping that message than inwards a neoliberal, atomistic civilisation where the message is ‘it’s my data, it’s nigh me.’”
Thul concurred: “There is strong individualism inwards the West which agency people grip dorsum what they have.” Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 characteristic of KOOMPI is its inbuilt learning center, Koursmos, amongst collectivist values at its core. “Our model is peer-to-peer learning – the whole community shares instead of beingness subject on a modest group. This model boosts collective knowledge. Users convey schoolhouse amongst them anywhere rather than only a few people going to school.”
The Big Questions
The Fourth Industrial Revolution raises meaning questions nigh the governance of information together with the technologies that it enables, together with the administration of resources together with national systems for the long-term equitable exercise goodness of a population. These questions direct maintain barely been resolved inside countries, or nigh traditional assets together with opportunities: they volition aspect upwards additional scrutiny together with pressure level equally unexpected countries demonstrate novel strengths.
“The cyberspace era leveled the playing land betwixt countries,” Thul said to me. “Maybe these novel technologies volition direct maintain the same levelling effect. Governments together with entrepreneurs inwards less wealthy countries mightiness involve to build a chip to a greater extent than effort, but they already know how to exercise a lot amongst less, which is an wages for their future.”
I position it to Thul that these novel technologies brought amongst them unfamiliar ethical together with social challenges. “KOOMPI teaches users to exercise enquiry together with it cultivates an engineering scientific discipline mind-set hence that they tin john solve increasingly harder problems, together with exercise solutions that nosotros can’t imagine yet,” he responded. “This is what nosotros involve for the country’s hereafter together with for the adjacent generation. It isn’t all the responsibleness of authorities or international organizations.”
Reporting for this slice was supported yesteryear the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.
M.G. Zimeta is an Ethiopian philosopher together with author who has written for The Paris Review, The Atlantic, together with Prospect, amid others, together with broadcast amongst BBC World Service, BBC Radio 4, together with BBC Radio 3. Follow her on Twitter: @mgzimeta
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