Kate Kallot, AI founder: A global digital divide?

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Interview (BBC World Service)

Episode: "Kate Kallot, AI founder: A Global Digital Divide?"

Date: May 31, 2026
Host: Leanna Byrne
Guest: Kate Kallot, Founder of Amini (AI infrastructure company for the Global South)

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Overview

This episode features an in-depth conversation with Kate Kallot, the founder of Amini, a Nairobi-based AI startup dedicated to building data and computing infrastructure across Africa, the Caribbean, and Latin America. Hosted by Leanna Byrne, the discussion explores how AI risks amplifying old patterns of global inequality, the structural divides impeding AI’s benefits in the Global South, and the practical steps Amini is taking to ensure local communities are not merely data suppliers but active leaders in AI’s expansion.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Kate's Personal and Family Inspiration

• Legacy of Responsibility: Kate shares her family's history, particularly her grandfather Joseph, a pioneering Central African Republic police official who was executed for refusing corruption under Bokassa. This legacy instills a deep sense of purpose in her work for the continent and the broader Global South.
  • "I've always thought, okay, at some point I will need myself to do potentially the same choice as Joseph and come back to the country or to the continent and really put my skills to use." — Kate Kallot [05:44]
• Transnational Identity: Having lived and worked around the world (France, Barbados, Japan, US, UK), Kate feels a "responsibility for the Global South" as a transnational citizen, observing commonalities in challenges and opportunities across these regions. [05:55]

Kate’s Path Into Tech & AI

• Pivot to Tech: Originally aiming to be a journalist covering African geopolitics, a formative exchange in Japan redirected her toward technology’s impact on society.
• Teaching Herself Coding: After a stint at Intel, she became a self-taught data scientist, driven by intellectual curiosity and a desire to understand emerging technologies deeply. [06:57]

The Global Digital (and Data/Compute) Divide

1. The Digital Divide:

• 2.2 Billion Unconnected: A third of humanity remains offline, making whole cultures and languages "invisible" to current AI models which are solely trained on internet data.
  • "Unconnected truly means invisible. They're completely invisible to the AI models..." — Kate Kallot [10:27]

2. The Data Divide:

• Fragmented, Unstructured Data: 80% of data in the Global South is analog—handwritten, unstructured, or not digitized—leaving communities excluded from the digital economy.

3. The Compute Divide:

• Disproportionate Compute Power: Africa, despite 19% of the world's population, holds <1% of global data center capacity. The number is "closer to zero than one," reinforcing the AI power imbalance.
  • "90% of the world's compute today is concentrated in three regions... Africa for 19% of the world's population only holds less than 1%..." — Kate Kallot [11:02]
• Opportunity Through Challenge: Despite these compounding divides, Kate asserts this is an "opportunity to do things differently, purpose-built for our context." [11:42]

Building Local AI Infrastructure: Amini’s Approach

• Modular Data Centers: Instead of relying on standard large-scale infrastructure, Amini deploys modular, shipping-container data centers. These are:
  • Prefabricated and easily shipped to remote or rural areas
  • Ready for renewable energy
  • Scalable to regional needs
  • "Data center in shipping containers that you could ship everywhere... renewable ready..." — Kate Kallot [12:19]
• Solving Connectivity Issues: Innovative use of under-utilized radio spectrum—repurposing bands used for TV/radio into 4G/5G, without new cell towers—to bridge the digital gap. [13:22]
• Local Team Building: Kate moved to Africa to be "closer to the problem," assembling a team through local university mentoring and personal networks. [14:01]

Funding & Profitability

• Bootstrapping to Success: Started by bootstrapping, then raised their first funding in March 2023 and second in November 2023, totaling $6 million. Went profitable by end 2023.
  • "We've now proven that, you know, you can build a company that does impactful work... but that can also make the profit out of it." — Kate Kallot [14:52]

Overcoming Bias and Stereotypes

• Barriers as a Black Woman & Global South Founder: Challenges raising funds as a Black woman, especially in a field with little funding for African ventures and founders.
  • "I'm a black woman trying to raise funding, right. It's not the usual technology funder type..." — Kate Kallot [17:31]
• Leveraging Global Networks: Success was facilitated by relationships and credibility built during her time in Silicon Valley and with companies like Nvidia and Intel.

Demonstrating Value through Real-World Projects

• Barbados Digital Sovereignty: Amini digitized three million historical and civil records, plus every legislative record since 2012 for the government, making knowledge actionable and cross-referenceable.
  • "We built an intelligent knowledge base for the country and made it searchable, cross referenceable and actionable in real time." — Kate Kallot [21:18]

Talent in the Global South

• Debunking "No-Talent" Myth: Investors doubted AI talent in these regions; Kate insists talent exists, often self-taught, clustered in non-traditional pathways (bootcamps, hackathons).
  • "The talent in our region is right now learning by themselves, self taught... congregating into non traditional pathway institutions..." — Kate Kallot [19:17]

AI, Inequality, and the Future of Work

• Risk of AI Repeating Colonial Extraction: The Global South risks being relegated to low-value data-labeling roles and “free data” extraction for AI models; Amini aims to break this pattern.
  • "We always speak internally about the things we want to make sure we do so that we lessen the impact and the extraction of the technology and we don't really go into very similar models than we had during colonization." — Kate Kallot [22:35]
• Building for Resilience: By ensuring local data sovereignty and building robust infrastructure, the region can control its AI future.

Defining and Measuring Success

• Distributed Cloud for the Global South: The goal is for Amini to be the “biggest distributed cloud company in the Global South,” with a team representing all its diverse markets.
  • "We want Amini to really be a representation of the global South." — Kate Kallot [23:59]
• Impact over Billions: Impact is measured not in dollars, but in "billions of lives impacted."
  • "We always say that we won't be rich by the billions of dollars we've, but by the billions of lives we've impacted." — Kate Kallot [24:42]

Reflections & Advice

• Paying It Forward: Reminds her younger self (and fellow founders) to stay focused and remember the value in supporting the next generation.
  • "The journey is going to be hard, but I have to stay focused because it is all worth it... make sure that I also, I am not just a model for the next next to come, but I also support the next generation as much as I can." — Kate Kallot [24:59]

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Notable Quotes

• "Unconnected truly means invisible. They're completely invisible to the AI models..." — Kate Kallot [10:27]
• "Africa for 19% of the world's population, only holds less than 1% of the global data center capacity, which the real number is closer to zero than one." — Kate Kallot [11:02]
• "You can build a company that does impactful work for the region... but that can also make the profit out of it." — Kate Kallot [14:52]
• "The talent in our region is right now learning by themselves, self taught... congregating into non traditional pathway institutions..." — Kate Kallot [19:17]
• "We always say that we won't be rich by the billions of dollars we've, but by the billions of lives we've impacted." — Kate Kallot [24:42]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• [03:02] – Extraction and legacy of inequality in tech
• [05:56] – Kate’s personal family history and sense of responsibility
• [06:57] – Journey from law/journalism to tech and AI
• [10:27] – Three divides: Digital, Data, and Compute
• [12:19] – Amini’s modular approach to infrastructure and connectivity
• [14:01] – Building and funding Amini; profitability
• [17:31] – Funding hurdles as a Black woman founder; importance of networks
• [18:39] – Addressing skepticism about the business and talent in Africa
• [20:03] – Barbados government project: Digital sovereignty in action
• [22:35] – The risk of AI repeating colonial patterns
• [24:42] – Success defined by billions of lives impacted
• [24:59] – Kate’s advice and value of paying it forward

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Tone and Takeaway

The episode is thoughtful, inspiring, and clear-eyed—Kate speaks candidly about systemic biases, immense challenges, and personal responsibility, but she also radiates optimism about the opportunity to chart a new course for AI in the Global South. It’s a must-listen for anyone interested in technology, global development, or entrepreneurship, offering both practical frameworks and deeply personal insights.

Transcript

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[Leanna Byrne]

hello, I'm BBC presenter Leanna Byrne and this is the interview from the BBC World Service. This the best conversations coming out of the BBC People shaping our world from all over the world.

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If you're not a little bit afraid

[Kate Callett]

then you're not paying attention. We have never seen a people so united.

[Leanna Byrne]

Do not make that boat crossing do

[Interviewer]

not make that journey Being born in

[Kate Callett]

America, feeling American having people treat me like I'm not We're more popular than populism.

[Leanna Byrne]

For this episode, I speak to Kate Callett, founder of the Kenyan artificial intelligence company Amony, which is building AI infrastructure across Africa, the Caribbean and Latin America. Since founding the Nairobi based company in 2022, she has expanded Amony into more than 25 countries, helping governments and businesses use AI to tackle challenges ranging from agriculture to climate risk. Kate warns that artificial intelligence risks repeating old patterns of global inequality, with poorer countries providing valuable data while richer nations reap the rewards. She tells us that by building computing infrastructure locally, Amony is trying to ensure countries in the global south help shape the AI boom rather than simply supplying the data behind it.

[Kate Callett]

When it comes to historically as a region, we've been extracted at Two levels on one side. If you look at the AI value chain, a lot of our use who is technology native, who sometimes has studied computer science is left at data labeling roles at the bottom of the value chain where the least value is created. We also been extracted in a different ways where a lot of our data is being extracted for free to train those systems. So for me, I think we always speak internally about the things we want to make sure we do so that we we lessen the impact and the extraction of the technology and we don't really go into very similar models than we had during colonization.

[Leanna Byrne]

Welcome to the interview from the BBC World Service with Kate Callett.

[Kate Callett]

We are an AI company building the sovereign data infrastructure for the Global South. Started a couple of years ago with Africa, but have now expanded throughout the global south, doing a lot of work in Latin America, Caribbean and Southeast Asia. A little bit of the backstory. My grandfather Joseph was born under French colonial rule in the Central African Republic. He was one of the first African graduates of Saint Cyr, which is the national police school in France. He studied in Washington Police Academy, Indiana. He met with President Kennedy and started working for Interpol, traveling the world, which was quite unusual for a black man from the Central African Republic at the time. And in 1960, when the country got its independence, he decided to move back to his country. He really made a bold choice. And the reason why he decided to move back was because he really wanted to help develop and accelerate his country's development. But in 69 he was arrested and killed by the dictator at the time, Bokassa, who wanted him to partake into corruption. And he decided not to. So after that, my grandma and her five kids, including my mom, were put in surveilled residence or prisons at the border of Sudan. And my grandma was continuing to educate her kids by hiding textbooks into cassava bags. They got released a couple of years later, they managed to immigrate to France. And this is how I was born and educated in France. But I grew up with that story really at the back of my mind and also going back to the Central African Republic almost every year while growing up. So I've always thought, okay, at some point I will need myself to do potentially the same choice as Joseph and come back to the country or to the continent and really put my skills to use.

[Interviewer]

It sounds like because of that story and that legacy that you carry a sense of responsibility.

[Kate Callett]

I do. A big sense of responsibility, not just for me, but I think for the African continent at large. But even for the Global south at large. Because I'm now a citizen of the world, right? Yes. I grew up in France, My origins are on the continent, but I used to live in Barbados in the Caribbean. I've studied in Japan, I've worked in the us in the uk. And I feel a sense of responsibility for mostly the Global south because I see how a lot of the challenges that we face very similar across the entire belt and a lot of the opportunities we face are also very similar. So there's this kind of duality and also a lot of these things. Although we far in terms of geographic spread, we actually extremely similar in terms of culture, knowledge systems and in terms of challenges and opportunities. So that's where my sense of responsibility lies towards too.

[Interviewer]

Originally you studied law and political science, then you did communication. So how did you end up in tech and then in AI specifically?

[Kate Callett]

I always say I have a bit of unusual pass into, into technology because I wanted to become a journalist and write about geopolitics across Africa and write about the imbalance of natural resources in Central African Republic. So kind of like going back also to where I was. But I did a year abroad, I was an exchange student in Japan. So when I got to Japan, one of my professors was working at Sony. He used to lead the marketing team, which is the campaign for the Walkman at the time. And he was teaching us about how technology could change behaviors for the best. And I was so inspired by that that when I came back, I applied for an internship at intel and got hired at Intel Paris. And then that's how my career in tech kicks start. And I started teaching myself how to code and became a data scientist like this because for me it was okay. If I'm getting into a field, I need to understand really how this works. I'm a very curious person. So I need to dig a little bit deeper. I need to be able to build myself. And that's kind of how I ended up into AI and emerging technologies. Because I had this like passion for really understanding how the convergence of machine learning, emerging technologies, computer vision, drones and such were working. Because that's what I was working on when I was at Intel. And since then I actually never left the field. It just became what I live and breathe on a daily basis.

[Interviewer]

When he started, were there many women doing that?

[Kate Callett]

There were not many women doing that, let me tell you. There were not many people of color when I used to lead emerging technologies for the group in Europe. I was based in Poland when I started that. And I remember at the time we were two black employees in the country out of like maybe about 2,000 people. And for me, that always was quite shocking. But then you move to the US and you have so many black executives and you're like, oh, my God, this is a different world.

[Interviewer]

Was there a particular moment? Well, it seems like, you know, you have been learning and, you know, accumulating a lot of knowledge about where the gaps are in technology. Was there a particular moment when you realized the global south was being left out particularly?

[Kate Callett]

Yeah, it was in 2018. I was still at ARM at the time. ARM had a partnership with UNICEF, so they were bringing a couple of executives in Africa. Actually, we traveled to Ethiopia and to Malawi, and it was my first time being back to the continent since 2014. So I had spent about four or five years away. And when I got to Malawi, we went to a school in a rural village. I can't even describe. It was a big realization and it was a feeling of I need to be doing more and I need to be doing more for Africa. Don't ask me why. It's very difficult to describe that feeling. But this is when I felt a deep switch in my heart and where I decided that now it would be the time that everything I would do onwards in my career, I would actually do it for the benefits to the continent. So when I came back, I helped ARM build a strategy for emerging economies. I was about to take that role, which is when Nvidia came in. And my deal with Nvidia was, I'm going to join, I'm going to help, I'm going to do what I've been doing for a while, which is developer relations. But I also want to figure out a way to support accelerating technology access in Africa, Latin America. All these a bit of forgotten emerging economies.

[Leanna Byrne]

Now, you said before that many AI

[Interviewer]

systems are being built for conditions that simply don't exist in large parts of Africa. What do you mean by that?

[Kate Callett]

We still have a couple of divides that right now, Africa is at the heart of. The first one is the digital divide. I think we all know that we still have 2.2 billion people in the world that are unconnected. And unconnected truly means invisible. They're completely invisible to the AI models that are being built today because those models are using data from the Internet to be able to train their systems. But if you have like a third of the world's population that is not on the Internet, that means their knowledge systems, their cultures, their languages are not represented in those AI systems. The second one, I think Is the data divide across the Global South. 80% of our data is completely unstructured, fragmented. We still operate on analog systems, you know, paper based handwriting, so that data is not even ready to be ingested or analyzed. In the AI economy, which is all running on digital, I usually look at is the compute divide three regions. 90% of the world's compute today is concentrated in three regions. Africa for 19% of the world's population, only holds less than 1% of the global data center capacity, which the real number is closer to zero than one. When you think about all these different divides compounded with each other, you realize that actually right now none of the systems, the AI systems that we talk about every day that are making the headlines everywhere are designed for the continent, let alone for the rest of the global South. So there's a big imbalance. But in that imbalance I'd actually see an opportunity. An opportunity to do things right, an opportunity to do things differently and an opportunity to do things purpose built for our context. And this is the reason why I started that mini.

[Interviewer]

So yeah, you had the opportunity, you got that feeling that you want to do something, but then you have to start the business. Where did you start from?

[Kate Callett]

We started from the data because our biggest bet was okay, how do we go about AI systems that are built from the ground are actually reflective of local reality. But then we operating in places where energy and connectivity these cars. So when we started looking at compute, we thought well you know, these big AI factories that we're talking about can't be operated here. So how can we about it differently? And we started looking into deploying modular systems that are prefabricated, literally data center in shipping containers that you could ship everywhere, especially in rural areas that are hard to reach. And those systems are renewable ready, so they can work with any source of renewable energy. But they're also very small. So they are modular and they can grow as a country and an ecosystem needs. And then once we had that, we spent the past two years looking at how we could solve for the connectivity issue because you now generating insights that you want to distribute to the communities. But actually that distribution channel doesn't exist because a lot of our communities in rural areas don't have access to Internet today. So we were like if we console for that last bit, we won't be able to make any progress. So we actually a few months ago released a research paper and looked at how we could repurpose underutilized spectrum bands that every country has, including the ones that you're using to broadcast radio or to do TV broadcasting into 4G and 5G without having to expand and add more cell towers, which is the way to do it today.

[Leanna Byrne]

So at that point, had you left your job?

[Interviewer]

How did you fund all of this?

[Kate Callett]

So at that point, I had already left my job. All this happened after I moved to the continent. And when I first moved in, I was just thinking about, okay, I need to be closer to the problem. So I spent a few months really exploring and trying to understand exactly where the problems were. Assembled a team as well, a local team that I knew from mentoring some students at university and such. So it was more about, okay, let me move closer to the problem, find a team to help me solve that and just start building. So we bootstrapped for the first couple of months and then we raised up. Our first round, I think was March 2023, and then we raised the second round, November 2023. We raised a total of $6 million. But at the end of last year, we actually became profitable for the first time. So we've now proven that, you know, you can build a company that does impactful work for the region, impactful and meaningful work for the global south, but that can also make the profit out of it.

[Leanna Byrne]

You're listening to the interview from the BBC World Service with me, Liana Byrne.

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[Leanna Byrne]

When Kate spoke to me over Zoom from Nairobi, she really struck me as an intensely driven person. She's someone with a real sense of purpose, and I can feel how deeply her grandfather's story still inspires her and how personally she feels the inequalities she's trying to solve. And when she talks about her business, I really get the sense that she's trying to prove it can be both impactful and profitable. Okay, let's return to my conversation with Kate Kallatt.

[Interviewer]

Every founder knows at certain points and that there's huge challenges where you have to decide whether you're not you want to continue. Were there any big hurdles for you that you had to overcome?

[Kate Callett]

Yeah, it was hard. I mean, I'm a black woman trying to raise funding, right. It's not the usual technology funder type that you can find in the market. So I was going against all odds against, you know, the very small pocket of funding that's going to women founders, the very small pockets of funding that's going to black funders, the very small pockets of funding that's going to founders solving for Africa and the global South. What truly helped me is a lot of the ecosystem I had built in the Silicon Valley, working at the center of the AI revolution, the relationships that I've been able to build, the trust that I had been able to get from there stayed with me when I left. If I had not worked in the us If I had not worked at Nvidia, at Intel, I wouldn't have been able to achieve all that in the timeframe that we have today.

[Interviewer]

Was it ever difficult to convince people that this was a commercial opportunity? It wasn't something like charity development, Particularly when people say here something like AI for Africa, you know, they might think this is a charity or it's a developmental opportunity, not necessarily a commercial entity. And you've shown that it is.

[Kate Callett]

Yeah, it was. And it's still difficult because you still get into rooms where they're like, but is there any money in Africa? Like, who is going to buy your systems? Or is there any money in the Caribbean who is going to buy your systems? But now we have the proof points, so we're able to show that this has converted and the world has changed a lot so that the old assumptions are not true anymore. But I think even beyond the commercial opportunity, the one thing people kept asking me, especially investors was where are you going to find the talent? Talent in Africa? There's no AI talent in the global south. But truthfully we've been able to prove them wrong. The talent in our regions is not sitting at big tech. The talent in our region is right now learning by themselves, self taught. Just like I was in AI, in data science, in machine learning. They're congregating into non traditional pathway institutions, learning at boot camps, hackathons. You just have to find them and they extremely smart and they know how to solve problems. You just have to give them the frame to solve those problems at a grade that is enterprise government grade. So it's more softer skills you have to commit to. But once you make that commitment, I can tell you that the talent is there and it's ready to be harnessed.

[Interviewer]

Often founders say that standing in front of investors and having to convince them of your business is one of the hardest things. But do you ever, you know, give them an example of how your platform changes outcomes for people, businesses?

[Kate Callett]

We did. And I think when you first start fundraising, when you're pre product, pre everything, the one thing investors want to know is what is your story and why are you the best person to solve that problem. So you know, I used to make a parlor with my grandfather's story and kind of to explain to them really what was driving me. Let me give you an example. So two years ago we started working with the government of Barbados and that started in a very uncanny way because I was waiting to meet with Prime Minister Motley and she hears that there is a lady who wants to talk to her about AI and sovereignty. She didn't have enough time and she said put her in the car. So I'm in the car with the prime minister, have 15 minutes to tell her about how our nations can become one of the most data rich small island nation in the world or how it can become someone else's data colony. And she looked at me for a long moment and she said, build it. Barbados had records dating back the 1600s that they were scanning. So we used our proprietary AI models to digitize over 3 million documents, including civil and commercial records dating back the 1600s. We also ingested all their cabinet papers, over 22,000 cabinet papers, every MoU legislation, bilateral agreements, every commitment Barbados had made since 2012. We built an intelligent knowledge base for the country and made it searchable, cross referenceable and Actionable in real time. For me, you know, Barbados is not just a story of sovereignty, it's a story of a small island nation understanding that the world has changed. And we had a very particular convergence between AI data and geopolitics and understanding that today, to build risk and resilience in your country, you actually have to invest into data infrastructure.

[Interviewer]

I love that story. It's like the elevator pitch, but you had 15 minutes rather than 15 seconds and you were in a car instead.

[Kate Callett]

So

[Interviewer]

I'm wondering, Katie, I mean, you mentioned that we are very much at a crossroads in terms of technology and artificial intelligence. And a lot of people say actually artificial intelligence isn't going to be good for everybody, particularly people in blue collar working jobs, and that it's going to get rid of a lot of jobs and essentially it's going to create this higher class of people who are going to make a lot of money through AI and then the rest of the people, they're going to lose jobs. How do you feel about that?

[Kate Callett]

Well, I think this is one of the reasons why also Amini exists and why we say we're building sovereign data infrastructure for the Global South. Our entire goal is to make sure no one is left behind. There are different layers to technology. There are different layers to creating value. Also the extraction. When it comes to historically as a region, we've been extracted at two levels on one side, if you look at the AI value chain, a lot of our users who is technology native, who sometimes has studied computer science, is left at data labeling roles at the bottom of the value chain where the least value is created. We also been extracted in a different ways where a lot of our data is being extracted for free to train those systems. So for me, I think we always speak internally about the things we want to make sure we do so that we lessen the impact and the extraction of the technology. And we don't really go into very similar models than we had during colonization where we want to make sure our countries are equipped, they understand the risks and the challenges that are coming to us and they also know how to build that resilience backbone for their countries and for us. If we can support that transition for the 3,4 billion people in the Global south, this is where we win.

[Interviewer]

Well, Kate, you're moving forward and you're active in more than 25 countries, so you're at a point as a founder where you're really scaling up your business.

[Kate Callett]

So what does that look like in

[Interviewer]

the next couple of years?

[Kate Callett]

For me, it looks like building in more markets, you know, and making sure that the talent we bring in, the company understands deeply the markets in which we operate in. We want a Muni to really be a representation of the global South. We have employees from everywhere, from the Caribbean, from Latin America, Brazil, the Philippines. And we want to continue being, you know, showing that you can build a company doing good in the global south in all these many markets that look different from the first look but are actually extremely similar. So when we succeed, I think you see Amini being the biggest distributed cloud company in the global south. And that's what we're working towards too.

[Leanna Byrne]

So that's what success looks like for you.

[Kate Callett]

Yes, and impact as well. We always say that we won't be rich by the billions of dollars we've, but by the billions of lives we've impacted.

[Interviewer]

Kate, if you could go back to when you started this, could you give yourself any advice that you know might help you when you started on this journey?

[Kate Callett]

I would probably tell myself that the journey is going to be hard, but I have to stay focused because it is all worth it. You know, I make a point always or, and I've made a point in my career quite a lot to pay it forward and just make sure that I also, I am not just a model for the next next to come, but I also support the next generation as much as I can. And I think sometimes when you're in the trenches, when everything becomes hard, you feel like the world is falling apart, which I think is the case for many founders out there. You kind of just forget that. And I think I would tell myself to just really stay focused on that because yes, the journey is hard, but I'm only going through this so I can pay it forward and give those lessons to others to make sure that they avoid making the same mistakes I've made myself.

[Leanna Byrne]

Thank you for listening to the interview. You'll find more in depth conversations on the interview wherever you get. Your BBC podcasts, including episodes with Google's CEO Sundar Pichai and Julia Gillard, former Prime Minister of Australia, plus many others. Until next time, Bye for now.

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