It is a time of great change. People, institutions, and societies are having major breakthroughs, both socially and technologically. From our unique corner of the technology universe, we see both challenge and opportunity. New markets driven by people and technology are creating a new path for society as we approach the second quarter of the 21st century.
Global Delivery Growth
As we think ahead, we look offshore. Today, Prowess operates in 7 countries. We are planning and preparing to scale this offshore delivery in 2024 and beyond. Besides the EU and Asia, we see opportunity in Africa, where a rapidly growing, young, well-educated population has been all but overlooked by global technology firms. The UN projects that 25% of the world’s population will be African by the year 2050 and that the populations of more than half of Africa’s 54 countries will double.
The world needs more, capable, and affordable technical talent. Countries across Africa have masses of bright, qualified, motivated candidates and more enter the workforce every year. Nigeria, in particular, has the largest, youngest, fastest growing population in Africa. Marred reputations and negative stereotypes among African countries have been barriers to growth. Young talent leaves Africa for the EU or the Americas for opportunities to validate and mature their skillsets. Big tech is beginning to uncover the opportunity.
We see a virtuous cycle developing. More tech opportunities in Africa means mid-career Africans have a compelling reason to skip the work stint abroad. Better opportunities closer to home eliminate brain drain and keep more resources in-country to further enhance the technology ecosystem. The coming decade will deliver on this promise and Lagos will look more and more like Bangalore. Many African countries also share the added benefits of native English communication and complementary working hours with the EU and the Americas. We are committed to join big tech pioneers like Microsoft and Meta who are growing business operations in Africa. Expect more from Prowess in Africa in 2024.
People-Powered GenAI
No forward-looking discussion these days is complete without mentioning AI. Global technology innovation is at a new climax, with generative AI being perhaps the most startling in terms of potential impact to society.
But AI is not all that new. The vision, research and efforts around AI began in the 1950s; but until very recently there hasn’t been enough compute power to realize the vision. Fast-forward to today and we find facial recognition features that have been in day-to-day, not-completely-creepy use for years (like the “Explore” feature in Google Photos). The audio recognition service Shazam predates smartphones.
So why is the world going crazy about AI now? In a word: utility. It is now easy to do many useful things.
Ultra-high scale yet affordable compute power used with massive data sources makes generative AI tools easy and cheap to use for lots of ordinary purposes. The evolution of cloud and mobile marketplaces means consumers expect and receive AI capabilities free of charge. Incredibly powerful and highly secure AI systems can be utilized for a very affordable subscription, or they may be included in a subscription you already pay for.
Prowess has invested in research, testing/validation, and benchmarking of AI. Our conclusions are not complete, but we know that unedited generative AI output is usually not a meaningful nor complete solution. A gap between AI capabilities and human expectation exists and will remain. Filling that gap requires hard work from a sentient person.
AI will increasingly help businesses get better results. But a lot of labor is required to implement, integrate, train and test AI systems. And harvesting the full value of AI output requires even more help from people. Technical people, data people, and management people will remain in very high demand.
At Prowess we take cautious delight in the rush toward an AI-enabled world, and we will embrace it with more data and automation services offerings from more global locations in 2024 and beyond.
