EZULWINI – Maseyinisi Member of Parliament (MP) Nokuthula Dlamini has given her buy-in to four young Emaswati digital designers who have designed a system that offers virtual psychotherapy services, among others.
This transpired during the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology’s (ICT) two-day meeting with MPs at the Happy Valley Hotel which began on Tuesday.
During the course of the meeting, four young Emaswati men who own technology start-ups, Phumulani Nxumalo, Siphiwo Lushaba, Philani Dlamini and Siyabonga Mabuza, had been allocated a few minutes by the Ministry of ICT personnel to sell their ideas to politicians who were deliberating on the embrace of Artificial Intelligence (AI) in their workspaces. The developers are supported by the Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP’s) AI research group.
Philani Dlamini and Mabuza run the business called Innovation Forge, Lushaba, Talksy Wellness, while Nxumalo has the company called Lourie Technologies who all had something to say about their work.
Mabuza briefly said that his company developed the virtual psychotherapy system which instead of the face-to-face interaction for counselling services, could be done virtually.
Talksy Wellness also offers mental health outreach services while the designers also offer emotional intelligence sessions on the use of AI as well as design office performance systems that can best suit employers.
MP Dlamini had asked during the question and answer session whether the proposed virtual psychotherapy and mental health outreach digital-based systems could be made accessible in communities.
“My question is can we get these designers to be made accessible to us back at the communities where we represent people to use these systems. These are services that the communities need,” she said.
This comes at the rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) platforms usage where the politicians are being sensitised of the need to use it for official parliamentary business as well as passing regulatory use laws of AI.
The MPs were told that they could use AI in the drafting and summarising of public engagement policy briefs and Bill drafts; document redaction and amendment highlights; public submission analysis; transcribing and summarising meetings automatically, and; policy modeling.
The MPs were told that they should care about AI usage because it saves time while they draft responses, it summarises meetings, and preps briefings using perception tools that show how people feel about issues.
Moreover, the oversight role of scrutinising AI use in ministries to ensure fairness, was stated.
The designers also said that they have developed a music streaming platform that aims to support artists and film-makers who often financially struggle to make a living out of their talent.
Moreover, they also shared that they have designed a platform that is called Book Worm that can boost book sales for authors as their platform enables users to read-only read-written books instead of making duplicates out of one copy.
The young men had more to share including their capabilities to do data analytics, dashboard designing and intelligence systems that can transform the country’s traffic systems.
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