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Africa has the opportunity to reshape its economic future by becoming an active participant in the global digital economy. Technology is the key to unlocking this digital future. However, African countries lag behind G20 nations in their digital infrastructure and risk falling behind in their economic development.
In the age of AI, this lack of infrastructure is a barrier to unlocking productive potential and improved competitiveness. Many on the continent grapple with unreliable internet, expensive data and the widespread use of 2G and 3G mobile devices. Traditional AI platforms, built on cloud infrastructure and using high-spec hardware, are often incompatible with the realities on the ground, excluding Africans from the benefits of AI innovation.
What If You Didn’t Need a Stable Internet Connection?
Mobile technology has dramatically increased access to digital services throughout Africa. The GSMA Mobile Economy sub-Sarahan Africa 2024 report found that mobile subscriber penetration is forecast to reach 53% of the population by 2030. Approximately 1.4 billion mobile connections. Despite this enormous growth, affordability remains a barrier. A 4G handset in Africa can cost 63% of the average monthly income, making smartphones inaccessible for many.
African deep tech startup Fastagger has developed a solution for these roadblocks. It enables AI models to run efficiently on low-power devices – including affordable smartphones. The company is building the software infrastructure needed to bring machine learning and artificial intelligence directly to the edge. Especially where it is needed most.
Fastagger decentralises AI access by enabling AI to run on-device without needing constant connection or high-performance infrastructure. It makes it possible to reach rural, peri-urban, and bandwidth-constrained environments. To this end, the company is helping AI developers, startups, governments, non-profit organisations and enterprise IT teams. They are able to build applications using AI tools that don’t rely on centralised cloud infrastructure. As a result, these applications will function reliably on the ground in environments across Africa.
This means that doctors and nurses in rural and remote clinics can use on-device diagnostics and monitoring tools. Teachers and children can access AI-enhanced learning tools that work offline in low-resource schools. Energy and utilities workers can do predictive maintenance, and smallholder farmers can access smart agriculture advisory tools offline.
Providing A Solution To Strengthen Africa’s Small Business Economy
The backbone of Africa’s economy is small and medium businesses [SMBs]. Many of whom rely on mobile money, a $1,7 trillion market. In 2024, Africa accounted for 53% of the global mobile money market. The continent has 1.1 billion registered accounts out of a global total of 2 billion. Sub-Saharan Africa alone contributed $190 billion to regional GDP, highlighting mobile money’s growing economic impact.
Mobile money is not just convenient for customers – it promotes financial inclusion and drives economic activity at every level. Many SMBs rely on mobile money flows from their customers, and want to strengthen and develop those consumer relationships. However, they struggle to keep up with manual accounting processes such as paper-based documentation or Excel spreadsheets. This make it difficult to effectively manage customer retention and build brand loyalty.
According to Bain & Company, for small businesses just a 5% increase in customer retention can increase profitability by 25 to 95%. For SMBs, this could be the difference between success and failure. The market for innovation is significant – in 2024, one in 10 mobile money users was based in Kenya. An estimated 100 million SMBs in Africa, Asia, Latin America and the Middle East.
On-Device AI Solves SMB Customer Retention Crisis
Fastagger has built an AI business assistant agent using mobile-based AI. For a small fee of just $1 to $5 a month. SMBs can access a SaaS [Software as a Service] tool. They can use mobile-based AI to provide these small businesses with customer intelligence, automate engagement and provide business coaching to build skills.
Compared to a manual process of up to eight steps to reconcile payments and engage with customers. The Fastagger process allows merchants to set parameters for customer rewards and initiate a coupon reward system with just two steps. The AI algorithm analyses customer profiles and determines who to send the coupons to, automatically distributing them. The merchant has a dashboard to view customer purchases and coupon redemptions, data for financial access and a credit-based loyalty programme.
Recognising the potential for Fastagger’s solution to impact millions of end-users across the continent, Microsoft has supported Fastagger with end-to-end support through the Africa Transformation Office’s flagship startup cohort programme. Backing including technical mentorship with deep engagement on Azure AI, IoT and GitHub, and business strategy guidance. Key partnerships with Technvest, Cloudmania and NVIDIA have proved valuable to accelerate product development and deployment.
Microsoft’s tools and the ATO team’s support have been game-changers for us. From Azure AI to GitHub, the ecosystem gave us everything we needed to move from concept to deployment quickly,” says Fastagger CEO Mutembei Kariuki.
A Positive Impact For SMBs
To support small and medium business development, Fastagger has developed the AUNI system, which is embedded into Safaricom’s M-PESA Business App, serving over 2,500 MSMEs using entry-level Android devices. The system was developed with support from Microsoft and the NVIDIA GenAI Programme Accelerator, which provides exclusive resources and opportunities to companies looking to build, market, and scale up their generative AI products and services.
“Using the AUNI system has allowed us to effectively manage and track customer interactions, streamline our marketing efforts and allows the company to have overall better data organisation, including visual graphs with reports,” comments Sharon Njoroge, from Mandevu. “This is providing valuable insights into customer behaviour and preferences, allowing Mandevu to make data-driven decisions, a game-changer for the company.”
By making machine learning accessible on widely available devices, Fastagger is democratising AI and powering local solutions across Africa. “Thanks to the Microsoft and the NVIDIA GenAI programme accelerator, and support from Liquid Telecom and Cloudmania, Fastagger became a Microsoft startup. This now gives any Azure enterprise global access to our infrastructure for deploying on-device AI, turning Fastagger into a truly global business overnight,” says Kariuki.
