http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-26065991 IBM's Watson in Africa to Help Solve Problems BBC News (02/06/14) IBM has launched Project Lucy, a 10-year, $100 million initiative to leverage IBM's Watson supercomputer to give Africa a boost in agriculture, education, health, and other areas. Under Lucy, universities will have an opportunity to connect to the cloud-based system, and those with very limited computer resources will be able to link via smartphones or portable devices with Internet connectivity. The supercomputer uses artificial intelligence to analyze vast amounts of data and also can understand human language. Participants in the project will be able to ask Watson questions and receive answers, such as the best treatment for an individual patient. "It is also able to reason," says Uyi Stewart, chief scientist of IBM Research in Africa. "One if its key functions is natural language processing." Stewart says Lucy could transform education and health in Africa in much the same way that mobile banking has transformed finance. "With the adoption of mobile phones, banking has become virtual and it could be the same premise in education and healthcare," Stewart says. IBM is tweaking Watson to deliver relevant bite-sized chunks of information. University of Lagos professor Rahamon Bello says access to a supercomputer could help Africa "leapfrog other economies."