CHARLESTON, S.C., August 27, 2024 — In collaboration with WASH AI, Global Water Center (GWC) is developing an artificial intelligence system that will support engineers and technicians in over 15 languages as they learn how to design, build, and maintain solar powered water systems for rural communities.
“Partnering with WASH AI allows us to integrate Generative AI technology into our training platforms, enhancing our ability to support rural water professionals, to design, install and maintain e.g. solar powered water solutions,” said Benjamin Filskov, GWC’s Senior Director of Strategic Initiatives and Collective Impact.
By utilizing cutting-edge techniques, GWC and WASH AI are working together to bring state-of-the-art, reliable, and technically accurate AI-assisted tools to the water sector. Olivier Mills, the founder of Baobab Tech and WASH AI stated, “With GWC, we are applying the latest advancements in AI. Beyond your simple ‘bot,’ we are innovating and building agentic AI systems that specialize in subject matter, enabling us to reach more practitioners in their own language and with varying levels of background knowledge.”
Specifically, GWC will integrate Generative AI in the following areas across its learning and technical support services:
- An AI-powered website assistant to support basic knowledge on various WASH topics
- An AI-powered training assistant to help GWC scale and provide support to participants
- A multilingual WhatsApp assistant that can answer technical questions about solar powered water systems
- A training participant follow-up system to provide personalized engagement with WASH engineers and technicians to continue their learning journey.
With a shared vision of innovation and professionalization within the rural water sector, GWC and WASH AI are pioneers in employing specialized Large Language Models for technical support and training in the WASH sector.
“Using AI’s strengths, we provide contextualized technical support and learning at an unprecedented scale, making a significant impact on building knowledge and skills to address the global water crisis,” Olivier said.
To learn more about Global Water Center’s technical and learning services, go to https://globalwatercenter.org/learn-with-us/.
About Global Water Center
Global Water Center believes everyone deserves access to safely managed water. We provide education, innovation, and collaboration to equip leaders to solve the global water crisis together. As the go-to resource for the rural water sector, our safe water resources have reached people in 131 countries. In addition to education, we also use innovative technology to make water projects more effective and reliable. All of our efforts are rooted in collaboration with non-profits, governments, and other entities. Together, we are solving the global water crisis.
About WASH AI
WASH AI is an initiative born out of the challenges of the sector to provide effective data, information, knowledge, products, and services that truly meet the needs of Water, Sanitation & Hygiene practitioners locally, from CBOs, Governments, INGOs, and other private sector actors. WASH AI provides a suite of AI-powered systems that can be integrated with organizations’ internal and external knowledge bases to provide multi-lingual, reliable information services to their clients.