By stages
Stories by stage: from idea to wide use
Some of these solutions are still ideas, others are used every day. Each story says clearly which stage it has reached.
Concept
An idea or prototype, not yet tested with real people.
Education · Palestine
How Gaza's universities keep teaching, and an offline AI idea for blackouts
With most campuses damaged or destroyed, Gaza's universities moved classes online and into temporary learning spaces. Al-Aqsa University has also proposed an offline AI tutor on solar-powered mini servers, a design still looking for partners.
Mental health · United States
A student's AI prototype that asks how you feel before it tries to help
Ordinary Days, built by University of Washington master's student Selah Key, is designed to learn a person's stress signals from devices they already own and to check in before it suggests anything. UW says it won an award in Geneva in July 2026. No results from testing it with users have been published.
Pilot
Being tested with real people, in a limited place or time.
Health · Benin, Mali, South Africa
How a team in Benin is testing AI that reads lung scans for tuberculosis
In a hospital study in Cotonou, an AI that reads handheld lung ultrasound caught 82% of TB cases, short of the WHO's 90% target for a triage test. A five-year trial in Benin, Mali and South Africa will show whether it works in local clinics.
Health · Lebanon, Jordan
A WhatsApp chatbot from Beirut helps people find health answers from trusted sources
HIBA answers everyday health questions by text or voice note, in 28 languages, using only curated WHO, IFRC and UNICEF material, and it will not diagnose. It was offered in Lebanon's displacement centers during the 2024 war and is still a small pilot with no independent results.
Health · Zambia
Zambian midwives get an AI second opinion in cervical screening
Dawa Health says its small in-clinic device, which sorts cervical photos without internet, has helped screen more than 3,500 women since late 2025. Accuracy results that outsiders can check are still to come, from a planned validation with UNFPA and Zambia's Ministry of Health.
Public services · Democratic Republic of the Congo
Can AI help spot hate speech on community radio? A pilot in eastern DR Congo
A 2025 pilot recorded and transcribed broadcasts from ten community stations in Goma and Bukavu, flagged possible hate speech for people to check, and answered with radio programs. No results are public yet, and a research phase with ETH Zurich runs to 2027.
Accessibility · United Kingdom
Meet the technologist with ALS who built an AI voice tool with his eyes
Bernard Muller designed SMF VoXAI using only eye tracking. It drafts replies in a conversation and speaks them in the user's own voice through an avatar. It is still a pilot, and no results have been published yet.
Clean energy · India
Seven Indian plywood factories went solar. Satellite AI was only step one.
WRI India used AI to map factory roofs in Haryana from space. Getting seven plywood makers in Yamunanagar to install solar took three years of patient, human work.
Deployed
In regular use by real people.
Food and farming · Kenya
How a Kenyan farmer's daughter uses AI and simple text messages to warn farmers about pests
Farmer Lifeline's solar-powered cameras watch small farms for pests and disease, then send an SMS that works on any phone, so women farmers with basic handsets can act in time.
Accessibility · South Korea
AI helps Korean care staff understand challenging behavior
In Seoul, cameras now keep the behavior logs that care staff once wrote by hand, so specialists can work out what lies behind a person's distress.
Gender equality · Nigeria
A former teacher's NGO brings AI to girls and teachers in Abuja's public schools
Rising Hope Girls has students turn their drawings into AI images about girls' rights. It also runs school computer labs, trains teachers and built ReadBuddy, a reading app that won an ITU award in July 2026. Its reach and reading results so far are self-reported.
Scaled
Used widely, across many places.
