An artificial intelligence (AI) is set to unofficially compete with contestants of the three schools participating in the grand finale of the 2023 National Science and Maths Quiz.

The Brilla AI built by Kwame AI - an AI startup - will battle remotely with undisputed champions, PRESEC- Legon, Achimota School, and Opoku Ware School, at the riddles round of the final contest on Monday.

The Brilla AI will attempt to quickly and accurately provide an answer to a question with a Ghanaian accent.

The AI consists of four distinct machine-learning systems (across NLP, speech processing, and Generative AI) working together in real-time.

The head of the project, Dr. George Jojo Boateng, is upbeat about the potential of the technological beauty.

“To build an AI to compete in Ghana’s National Science & Maths Quiz Ghana (NSMQ) competition and win - performing better than the best contestants in all rounds and stages of the competition,” he said.

The app transcribes the voice of the quiz moderator into texts and lists the clues from the texts, which are then forwarded to the questions and answering feature of the app.

The AI then converts the answer to speech, replying to the riddle in a Ghanaian accent.

The open-source project seeks to explore the potential of artificial intelligence in the national competition and in the education sector.

It would ensure equitable and universal access to quality education in line with goal 4 of the United Nations Sustainable Developmental Goals.

“Aside from being a fun intellectual challenge, this work matters because there is much inequity in preparations for the NSMQ, a problem that is quite representative of the inequity in Ghana’s educational system where only the big-name schools almost always make it to the semis and finals,” Joojo added.

He continued. “Now, if every school had access to this AI technology that could enable unlimited preparation sessions, we can truly democratize NSMQ preparation, and more broadly science education across Ghana, and eventually enable millions across Africa to have one-on-one learning interactions.”

The first version of the Brilla AI which automatically transcribes speech with a Ghanaian accent, and generates an answer to a scientific riddle was demoed at AfricAIED 2023 and launched on Saturday, 28th October 2023.