Avinash Meetoo

Let us build a Smart Mauritius together

A panel on how to best leverage on Artificial Intelligence and Circularity

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I greatly enjoyed my panel on “Leveraging on Artificial Intelligence and Circularity” during the Industry 5.0 Conference organized by Tan Chee-Peng and his Team Synthesis colleagues and the University of Technology.

I shared my views on how to effectively identify innovators in a country like Mauritius, how to run experiments, how user-centric design is critical and how AI can be a formidable tool to augment our capabilities (e.g. by using ChatGPT effectively). I also spoke about how most organisations create data every day but most people do not realise how valuable this data can be for others.

The panel was chaired by Theesan Bahorun and the other panelists were Jane Koa Wing, Quentin Thorel and Eric Tailly. I got very positive feedback at the end and I am very happy to have been able to share some valuable nuggets of information with the audience. Thank you everyone.

Moderating during the Mauritius Africa Fintech Hub Regulatory Roundtable 2023

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On 18 August 2023, I was one of the moderators during the “Mauritius Africa Fintech Hub Regulatory Roundtable 2023” at the Financial Services Commission.

From 9:00 to 14:00, we discussed about Open APIs, eKYC, Digital Banking, RegTech, Virtual Assets, Web 3.0, Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Rupee.

The constructive deliberations are anticipated to yield comprehensive insights into Fintech regulation, ultimately contributing to the creation of a high-quality report which will be shared with stakeholders in Mauritius and across our partner networks in Africa in support of the development for the industry.

Our table was interesting and lively thanks the people we had. As a moderator, I made sure that the young student taking notes could actually have time to understand what we were all speaking about and take good notes. This will be useful for those who will write the report.

Attendees included CEOs of various companies, representatives from FSC, the Bank of Mauritius, MRA, MRIC, EDB, ICTA and other policy makers, among others.

During the session, I met my cousin, Nirish Beeharry, who was also one of the moderators. It is the first time we are “working” together. And I am sure that many such opportunities will follow.

The whole event was organised by the Mauritius Africa Fintech Hub whose President is Benazeer Saïdoo.

Opportunities and challenges in Artificial Intelligence by Rotary Club of Bagatelle

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On 2 August 2023, at 19:00, I was at Voilà Hotel to participate in a panel on “Opportunities and challenges in Artificial Intelligence”. The panel was organised by the Rotary Club of Bagatelle and there were 115 attendees (which was the largest number of people ever at one of their events apparently).

Other panelists included Sheeba Armoogum, Associate Professor in Computer Science at the University of Mauritius, and Jacques David Commarmond, CEO of GWS Technologies. The moderator was Amaresh Ramlugan, the Immediate Past President of Rotary Bagatelle. The current President of Rotary Bagatelle is Harsha Pathak.

I spoke about the fact that problems are complex and we have to have another kind of mindset to solve them: more collaborative, smarter and we need to forget about little unimportant things like which political party is better… It’s only then that Mauritius will transform into a Smart Mauritius.

I also spoke about emerging technologies, most notably Artificial Intelligence, and the kind of positive impact it can have on Mauritius. Of course, I also covered ChatGPT and how it can be the digital assistant we’ve always wanted but never had. Naturally, because the country is facing major structural problems such as an ageing population and the lack of talent in sufficient quantity, I spent a lot of time talking on how to possibly solve these issues using AI. But, fundamentally, it is always about peopleware. We need more and better people. We need to upskill and reskill our existing people, attract some members of the diaspora and foreigners.

The panel went very well and we had a wonderful question / answers session at the end. The questions asked were profound and I had to wrack my brain to answer some of them…

We got very encouraging comments during the networking session too. For example, three young people, fresh from university and Rotaract members, came to see me and told me that we had opened another world for them. I was happy for them… and for us.