In a world where Generative AI is moving faster than regulation, faster than education, and sometimes faster than understanding, one question keeps resurfacing: How do we keep up? not just with the technology, but with how it’s being used, questioned, and shaped in places far from our own? This isn’t just about staying “updated.” It’s about staying relevant, responsible, and globally aware.
The Risk of Siloed Innovation
GenAI doesn’t emerge in isolation. Whether it’s deployed in urban classrooms, rural farms, high-performance labs, or grassroots community projects, context shapes everything: from whose needs are prioritized to what trade-offs are made and ultimately, what success looks like. Yet too often, these stories stay siloed, divided by geography, sector, and discipline. When that happens, we miss out: – On lessons already learned elsewhere. – On innovations that don’t look like our own. – On critical conversations that could make this technology more just, adaptable, and inclusive.
A New Space for Global Dialogue
Recognizing the need for deeper exchange across contexts, GPT-Lab launched the GenAI Spark Series — a quarterly online dialogue platform connecting researchers, innovators, and practitioners working on Generative AI across regions and disciplines. Rather than centering any single geography or institution, the series creates space for practical project sharing, open reflection, and learning between peers who might never otherwise meet, yet are solving strikingly similar challenges through very different lenses. The first edition spotlighted GenAI practitioners from Tanzania: – Jumanne Mtambalike, Sahara Ventures – Essa Mohammedali, Tanzania AI Community – Kalebu Gwalugano, Neurotech Africa This served as a starting point for amplifying diverse experiences, exploring shared questions, and learning across geographies.
What We Heard — and What It Revealed
Across the 90-minute session, speakers from both GPT-Lab and the Tanzanian GenAI ecosystem shared real-world projects, challenges, and insights. What emerged wasn’t just a showcase, it was a shared sense of alignment.
🔹 GenAI as a Tool for Public Good Tanzanian stakeholders highlighted solutions rooted in local needs, from Twiga, an AI-powered teacher assistant on WhatsApp, to community-based innovation programs and entrepreneurship in AI education.
🔹 Ethics, Access, and Capacity Gaps Themes around compute access, locally relevant datasets, and navigating ethical challenges in under-resourced contexts echoed global concerns, while offering uniquely situated insights.
🔹 Complementary Strengths, Shared Curiosity Participants found resonance in each other’s questions, from building trust to achieving impact, yet approached them through vastly different realities. That contrast became a powerful space for mutual learning.
What Makes the GenAI Spark Series Different?
The GenAI Spark Series is intentionally small and focused. It’s designed to: • Learn across borders — not from polished narratives, but from the iterative, often messy work of applying GenAI in context. • Surface underheard perspectives — not as a formality, but as a necessity for building systems that reflect diverse realities. • Explore shared challenges — not by rushing into solutions, but by building the trust and context that long-term collaborations require.
Looking Ahead
This first session confirmed what we hoped: we need more spaces like this. As GenAI continues to evolve, socially, politically, and technologically, the need for cross-regional, cross-sector conversations will only deepen. Through the GenAI Spark Series, GPT-Lab aims to make room for these reflections. Future editions will explore different geographies and themes, but the guiding intention will stay the same: To make space for conversations that spark something new.
About the author
