Rabat – Women and young people in general have an important role to play for Morocco’s future by embracing Artificial Intelligence (AI), according to Minister of Higher Education, Scientific Research and Innovation Abdellatif Miraoui.
Speaking at a conference on female entrepreneurship and AI in Casablanca on Friday, Miraoui pointed to AI as an emerging field that could help boost employment for women and young people.
The minister, who recently penned a related agreement on the topic with the Ministry of Digital Transition and Administrative Reform, are eyeing the exciting new technology as one of the fields where Morocco can built new industries that are seen as potential avenues for women and young people to find employment or start their own business
Morocco’s universities now have student bodies that have achieved gender parity. Recent data suggest that 50% of students across universities in Morocco, roughly 1.3 million young people, are women with an important role to play in the country’s economic future.
In order to ensure there are new economic opportunities to Morocco’s growing young population, Minister Miraoui hopes that his ministry’s initiatives can contribute to boosting female participation in the labor market, particularly in new and exciting growth markets such as AI.
But the path towards a blossoming AI sector in Morocco is paved with obstacles. AFEM President Leila Doukali, speaking at the same conference, highlighted that AI needs to be “demystified” in Morocco, pointing to the slow adoption of the world-changing technology in leading Moroccan companies.
AI, or Artificial Intelligence, is a revolutionary technology that has slowly emerged over the past decades, first showing its impact in algorithms that have guided our experience on social media platforms and content websites such as YouTube.
Ever since the emergence of Large Language Models (LLMs) available to non-technical users, tools such as ChatGPT, Dall-E, Midjourney and Microsoft’s Copilot have emerged as game-changing tools to boost productivity.
With the technology rapidly advancing in capabilities, countries and companies alike face a make-or-break moment where they could embrace the revolutionary new technology, or face competitors that have instead.
