AI has been the talk of the town recently, and with rapid advancements happening every day, it can feel both exciting and overwhelming. To foster AI discussions, we organized an event where developers explored advancements, real-world applications, and AI acceleration with Arm CPUs.
When planning this event, we envisioned bringing together business leaders, tech experts, and developers to share knowledge on AI and its transformative impact on technology. The event highlighted Arm’s role in advancing AI at the edge and in the cloud.
The Arm X Angaza Elimu AI Innovation Day took place on February 15th at the ALX Piano Tech Hub. ALX Kenya is shaping a new generation of leaders and innovators across Africa by equipping learners with the skills to thrive in the digital economy. The Piano is a beautifully designed space that fosters creativity, collaboration, and meaningful connections. We’re grateful to ALX for hosting us in such an inspiring environment.
The event was organized by the Arm Developer Program Ambassadors Kevin Odero, Brenda Mboya, and Nicabed Gathaba, in partnership with Angaza Elimu. This marks the second event under the partnership between the Arm Developer Program and Angaza Elimu, and we saw increased engagement and diversity among participants.
Most attendees were from the Arm Developer Program, Angaza Elimu, and ALX communities, with additional participation from professional networks and social media.
The AI Innovation Day was a full-day event (9 AM – 6 PM), packed with engaging sessions, demos, and discussions that kept participants engaged until the very end. The day kicked off with Brenda Mboya, who introduced the Arm Developer Program, highlighting its benefits and encouraging attendees to join.
We were honored to have Ben Roberts share his insights on technology evolution and AI’s place in this transformation. Ben, former CTO of Liquid Intelligent Technologies, shared insights from his 20+ years in telecommunications on how connectivity advancements drive AI. He also shared his work as the Chairperson of Young Scientists Kenya (YSK) board, where he mentors the next generation of tech leaders. His session set the tone for the day, inspiring many in the audience.
Following this, we had a total of 11 speakers who led technical sessions, panel discussions, and AI demonstrations:
Tom Kinyanjui, Co-founder and CTO of Neural Labs Africa, shared the journey of NeuralSight , an AI-powered medical imaging diagnosis system. This deep learning and computer vision model can identify over 13 respiratory diseases in real-time, including Pneumonia, Tuberculosis, and Lung Cancer.
Tom spoke about the challenges and breakthroughs in developing NeuralSight , from early resistance from doctors to successfully working hand-in-hand with radiologists. A key takeaway was the importance of designing AI solutions, or rather any kind of solution, with the end user in mind, rather than in isolation. Today, NeuralSight is a profitable solution, helping radiologists in Kenya diagnose diseases faster and more accurately.
Allan Koech, Developer Advocate at Autodesk, showcased Autodesk AI solutions across industries, demonstrating how Autodesk AI is transforming:
Allan’s session was an eye-opener, highlighting how AI enhances productivity across different industries.
During my session, I focused on AI hardware and how Arm is accelerating AI across cloud and edge applications.
Moore’s Law predicted that the number of transistors on chips would double every two years, increasing computing power while reducing costs. For decades, this held true, fueling rapid technological advancements. However, we are now reaching physical limits in semiconductor manufacturing, prompting the industry to explore new architectural innovations rather than just transistor scaling.
AI workloads require specialized hardware beyond traditional CPUs. Key AI hardware components include:
AI tasks are computationally intensive, consuming high energy and generating significant heat. High-performance AI hardware is costly, making it inaccessible to many startups.
Deploying AI involves two major cost components:
With better AI hardware, optimized models, and increased competition, inference costs are decreasing, making AI more accessible.
Arm CPUs are optimized for AI inference, making AI more efficient and scalable across industries:
Arm provides Arm Kleidi, a tool that accelerates AI development by optimizing frameworks like PyTorch and TensorFlow, enabling out-of-the-box inference performance improvements. Additionally, Arm empowers developers through a wide range of resources through the learning paths, where one can access learning tutorials to help develop software on Arm.
Eliud Ochieno introduced Unified MisinformationDetect, an AI-driven fact-checking platform designed to combat misinformation across digital platforms. The system leverages Large Language Models (LLMs), AI agents, and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyze, verify, and assess the credibility of online content.
By integrating automated text analysis, multimedia verification, real-time web scraping, and cross-referencing with trusted sources, the platform assigns credibility scores and generates detailed fact-checking reports. A key component is its use of SerpAPI, which enables real-time internet scraping to compare questionable claims against verified research and fact-checking repositories.
With AI-powered pattern recognition, automated content analysis, and human-in-the-loop verification, Unified MisinformationDetect offers a scalable and adaptive solution to misinformation. This innovative approach empowers journalists, researchers, and policymakers with accurate, data-backed insights, ensuring the integrity of online information.
Elvis Munene presented Package Tracker, an AI-driven monitoring system designed to ensure the secure transit of packages by detecting improper handling in real time. Built on the Arduino Nano 33 BLE Sense Rev2 and powered by the Arm® Cortex®-M4F. The system uses embedded machine learning to classify package movements into categories such as Hard Fall, Vigorous Shaking, Throwing, Normal Carrying, and Idle. Package Tracker enhances transparency in logistics, reduces disputes over damaged goods, and improves customer trust.
With its low-power AI inference capabilities, the Arm Cortex-M4F enables real-time edge AI processing, making it ideal for IoT applications. When an insecure handling event is detected, the system automatically logs the incident via a GSM module, allowing businesses to monitor carrier performance and enhance package security. By leveraging Arm’s efficient processing architecture, Package Tracker delivers a scalable, portable, and energy-efficient solution for logistics companies looking to minimize losses and ensure accountability in package delivery.
This event brought together developers (students and professionals), business and tech leaders to explore AI’s potential. Attendees engaged in discussions, exchanged ideas, and learned from experts. The networking sessions were filled with energy, highlighting the passion for AI and its possibilities.
Arm is truly empowering AI everywhere, from cloud to edge, and through the Arm Developer Program, we continue to bring people together to learn and build the future of AI. There is still room for more education - both for developers learning how to build with AI models, and for businesses exploring how AI can enhance their operations.
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