The Digital Divide: Will AI Leave Developing Nations Behind?
By Rosa Kemirembe
Artificial intelligence is dominating global headlines, but the conversation we're hearing is largely a Western one, focused on job displacement, AI companions, and machines doing our thinking for us. But what does "AI taking over" actually look like in a developing country like Uganda?
That's the question at the heart of this week's Teaching for Success Inclusive podcast.
The Real Conversation We're Not Having
If you follow tech news, the message is clear: AI is coming for our jobs. It writes emails, creates art, crunches data, and even generates AI companions that some people now prefer over human friendships.
But this narrative assumes something fundamental: that everyone has access to the tools in the first place.
In contexts where millions struggle to afford daily data bundles, where a smartphone is a shared family asset rather than a personal device, and where classrooms lack textbooks, let alone tablets, the AI conversation sounds very different.
The real risk isn't that AI will "take over" in developing nations. It's that AI will bypass them entirely, widening an already dangerous gap between the haves and have-nots.
A Pattern We've Seen Before
This isn't new territory. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when schools closed worldwide, Uganda experienced a stark digital divide.
Students who could afford data and devices continued learning through Zoom and Google Classroom. They had access to teachers and materials. But children in rural villages and urban slums, whose parents couldn't afford smartphones or data bundles, fell silent. Months of education disappeared. Not because these children lacked intelligence or work ethic, but because the tools for learning were locked behind a paywall.
Now imagine that same dynamic, amplified by artificial intelligence.
When a student in a private Kampala school has an AI tutor personalising their lessons, while a child in a Gulu village has no teacher at all, what chance does that second child have in tomorrow's job market? We're heading toward a future where the rich get smarter faster, and the poor are left behind with no skills, no tools, and no hope.
An Uncomfortable Question
This forces us to confront a difficult truth about our society. In Uganda, and many developing nations, we have a pattern. When resources are scarce, we often look after our own: our family, our tribe, our immediate circle. We move forward, even if it means leaving others behind.
We see this selfishness in business, in politics, in how resources are distributed. So the question for the AI era is: Will we repeat that pattern?
Will we allow AI to become just another tool for the elite, another way to automate luxury for the few while the majority struggle to afford basics? Or will we demand something different? Will we insist that AI serves most people in this nation, not just those who can afford it?
Seeds of Hope
AI is already appearing in Uganda, though on a small scale. Farmers use simple apps to diagnose crop diseases. Healthcare pilot programs use AI to read X-rays for tuberculosis. Mobile money platforms employ AI to detect fraud.
These are promising beginnings. But imagine what's possible when we design tools that meet people where they actually are.
Three Possibilities for Inclusive AI
- AI tutoring through USSD codes
For those unfamiliar, USSD codes are those short numbers like *165# that create pop-up menus on any phone, no internet required. Imagine combining this with AI to create a government-sponsored tutor. A tool that helps a child in a remote village with homework, reads to them in their local language, and helps them pass exams. No smartphone needed. No data bundles required.
- Predictive public health
Imagine AI systems that predict malaria outbreaks in specific districts by analysing
weather patterns and historical data. Health workers could receive early warnings
through simple USSD codes and deploy mosquito nets and medicine before people start
dying.
- Market intelligence for vendors and farmers
Picture a tool that tells a tomato seller in Wandegeya the fair market price that day, connects her directly to buyers, and helps her plant crops to avoid market gluts. Simple information that could transform livelihoods.
None of this is science fiction. It's all technically possible. But these tools require collective will. They require us to resist the instinct to grab what we can and run. We need to demand that the government, private sector, and communities sit down together and discuss how we ensure access to AI tools and digital literacy for all.
The Hammer in Our Hands
If we fail to ask these questions, AI won't be a tool of liberation. It will be a tool of exclusion. The divide between haves and have-nots will become a wall that no one can climb.
Remember, AI is not magic. It's not alive. It's a tool, a hammer. And a hammer can build a house or break a window. It all depends on the hand that holds it.
The question is, what kind of society will we be? Will we be the hands that build? Or the hands that break?
This article is adapted from the Teaching for Success Inclusive podcast with Rosa Kemirembe. For more articles like this, visit the Teaching For Success website teachingforsuccess.ca.