I was invited to attend the annual workshop by the AUC's Access to Knowledge for Development Center A2K4D.

I was in the audience of a panel titled Data Governance for AI in the Health Sector which was more about data unavailability than AI. Prof. Fatima Roumate raised an important point about the sovereignty of data and systems, Meriem Ben Tarjem addressed the emigration of doctors as being one of the most pressing issues in Tunisian healthcare while some of the very important concerns were raised briefly at the end by Dr. Ayman Sabae on possible harm of AI, its inevitable use in health insurance which may threaten access to care.

As for actual implementations of AI in the region, I learned about Rology which is a teleradiology startup that uses a combination of AI and radiologists in their reports.

I would also worry about big tech monopolies in this sector as local companies my not be able to compete and the real threat that LLMs pose to patients in regards to misinformation, propagation of bias and its inability to communicate uncertainty.

For photos from the event check this thread on Mastodon.

This post is part of a challenge to write 150 blog posts of 150 words each this year. This is post 13 out of 150.