Project Gecko
An AI agricultural question-answering project by the Microsoft Research Africa team in collaboration with Digital Green. It uses a video knowledge base and retrieval-augmented generation technology to provide agricultural information to African farmers in their native languages.
Timeline (last 90 days)
Microsoft Research Africa partnered with Digital Green to carry out Project Gecko.
Project Gecko developed the PharmaChat app, which allows farmers to ask questions in their native language and returns the segment of a video that answers the question.
Project Gecko has accumulated more than 10,000 agricultural videos as a knowledge base.
The project team conducted field tests in Kenya to observe farmers' acceptance of PharmaChat, their initial questions, and usage challenges.
The team is working with machine learning engineers to evaluate the model's performance and failure modes across different modalities such as text, images, video, and speech.
The project team is creating a Kikuyu language model to serve farmers who understand neither Swahili nor English.
All Facts (6)
Microsoft Research Africa partnered with Digital Green to carry out Project Gecko.
50%UnverifiedProject Gecko developed the PharmaChat app, which allows farmers to ask questions in their native language and returns the segment of a video that answers the question.
50%UnverifiedProject Gecko has accumulated more than 10,000 agricultural videos as a knowledge base.
50%UnverifiedThe team is working with machine learning engineers to evaluate the model's performance and failure modes across different modalities such as text, images, video, and speech.
50%UnverifiedThe project team is creating a Kikuyu language model to serve farmers who understand neither Swahili nor English.
50%UnverifiedThe project team conducted field tests in Kenya to observe farmers' acceptance of PharmaChat, their initial questions, and usage challenges.
50%