AI for All !!

As we are living in a time where AI can answer questions, help with assignments, and even guide students on learning new things beyond the school curriculum. But for students in rural Nepal, these advancements might be a science fiction. Lack of technological infrastructure is keeping them away from the academic support they deserve. This is not just a challenge but it’s an injustice that needs immediate action.

To change this, developers and government authorities should think of using open-source tools like Ollama and some lightweight LLMs to run efficiently on low-end devices without internet. For example, a Raspberry Pi acting as a 24/7 AI tutor in a rural area of Nepal, then every student will have equitable access to AI. Furthermore, these devices are easily available within a budget of 15-20 thousand Nepali rupees, having the potential to diminish dependency on expensive hardware and even internet.

People might argue that using offline AI is like going back to the days of MS-DOS boring and technical. But with opensource tools like Docker, developers can customize the appearance of these LLMs in a way that gives users an interface similar to what they see on ChatGPT or other web-based platforms.

Most importantly it is not just theoretical, but several countries are already making it happen. For example, let’s talk about Kenya, Raspberry Pi devices are used in solar-powered learning hubs. These hubs use offline content servers, some now experimenting with locally run AI chatbots to help students with science and math. In addition, many tech enthusiasts around the world have successfully installed Ollama on Raspberry Pi to run models like Tiny Llama and LLaVa-Phi-3-mini without needing a cloud service.

If our government or any non-governmental organization will be able to make this happen. Then, many students will get instant academic support in the absence of a teacher or even possible to learn things beyond the classroom. Furthermore, they can also build skills like coding or exploring science concepts even more vividly.

Now it has become a challenge to educators, innovators, and government authorities whether they can ensure AI-powered education reaches even the most remote parts of Nepal or not. We don’t need billion-rupee budgets. The only thing we need to make this happen is dedication and accountability to ensure justice from the stakeholders.