Technology is just a tool.Development is the goal.
One connected plan using AI, digital public infrastructure, education, local-language tools, media, and health systems to build a more prosperous, inclusive, and self-reliant Gambia where young people build their futures at home.
Amran Gaye · The Gambian Digital Future Initiative · Banjul, The Gambia
The common task · Project 2035
By 2035: a Gambia where young people don't have to leave home to build a future.
Not one project, but one connected plan: ten areas of work, every one already started, built so far with no donor funding, all serving one common task.
The common task02 / 19
The person behind it
From Banjul to Goldman Sachs, Google, and home again on purpose.
Amran Gaye grew up in Banjul. A scholarship opened the world: Computer Science, then an international career through Goldman Sachs and Google. He chose to come home, on one conviction: the greatest contribution is not building technology elsewhere, but building a future here. This document is his plan, and an open invitation to be part of it.
Origin
Banjul
Opened doors
Scholarship
Trained
Computer Science
Built abroad
Goldman Sachs · Google
The choice
Returned home to build
Everything in this deck was started without donor funding: personal effort, personal resources, and community donations. It is proof of commitment. Imagine the pace with partners.
The journey · Amran Gaye03 / 19
A precedent
Seven centuries ago, a Malian emperor turned wealth into knowledge, and knowledge back into wealth.
Under Mansa Musa, the Mali Empire built mosques, schools, and libraries from Timbuktu to Gao. Scholars came from across the known world; books traded at prices rivaling gold; law, medicine, and astronomy flourished, and with them, trade and the empire's wealth. Learning was placed within reach of communities, and prosperity followed it.
Learning in every community
schools & libraries, Timbuktu to Gao
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Scholars · trade · law · medicine
knowledge compounding into capability
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A golden age
prosperity renowned across the medieval world
Learning is the foundation upon which all prosperity is built. That is the model we need again: learning within reach of every community, across the country and, in time, the continent.
Within reach of everyone: including those who cannot yet read, and Gambians living with disabilities.
The precedent04 / 19
Project 2035 · Libraries & learning
In every community, a place to learn.
Already completed
A digital learning center is live at the National Library in Banjul. A continuous book drive is seeding school libraries. Digital Jollof runs free code camps for kids.
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By 2035
The National Library becomes the engine of a national network, pushing a full ring of services out to small satellite centers in every community: free, for every Gambian, at every age.
The dreamEvery Gambian, at any age, a short walk from a place that says: come in, it's free, the future is yours.
Open to every Gambian at every age, completely free: children in coding clubs, parents at job fairs and workshops, elders in tech classes. A place to connect, to each other, and to the world.
The satellite center
where the community gathers, learns, and meets
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Hyper-local democracy
each community sets and decides its own priorities
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Direct donor connection
the world funds those priorities, transparently
A new kind of civic infrastructure
When every community has a connected center, decisions no longer have to pass through the capital to be heard. Communities decide; donors and the diaspora can back them directly, and see exactly what their support builds.
The dreamEvery community deciding its own future, and the world able to help it directly.
Connected toInclusionTrusted Information
Libraries · the town square06 / 19
Project 2035 · The citizen platform
One app, every Gambian: the digital town square in your pocket.
We have WhatsApp and social media, but Gambians deserve a platform that is theirs: built for our context, runs itself, and puts every service within a tap. Already connected to everything being built.
The Citizen App
Government services
IDs, permits, records, and public services delivered in Wolof, Mandinka, Fula.
Hyper-local democracy
Your community raises issues, votes on priorities, and connects directly to donors.
Local marketplace
Find local services, post a job, get a delivery, support a small business, all nearby.
Health passport
Your HaddyCare record, appointments, and health information, in your language.
Library network
Browse the digital library, book a workshop, find your nearest satellite center.
Everything by voice
Every service and every answer available in Wolof, Mandinka, or Fula.
The dreamEvery Gambian, wherever they are, one tap from any service the country offers.
Connected toLibrariesHealthLocal LanguagesInclusionTrusted Information
The citizen app07 / 19
Project 2035 · Education · AdaSchool
AI at every level of school, and the end of mass failure.
Already completed
AdaSchool is already built: an AI-powered platform for students, teachers, and administrators, designed for mastery learning.
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By 2035
Deployed to every public school in the country, needing only a modest AI budget: smaller classes, confident students, and a decisive cut to the 90%+ high-school failure rate.
AdaLearn AI
A personal tutor that accompanies each student through their whole journey. It adapts to how they learn best (visual, auditory, reading, hands-on) and supports study planning, homework, and exam prep, to mastery rather than passing.
AdaTeacher AI
Drafts lesson plans, automates grading, and surfaces per-student insights, so teachers spend their time teaching, with smaller effective classes and more quality time.
AdaManager AI
School-wide analytics for administrators and the education department: track performance, allocate resources where they matter, and see what is working in real time.
Integrity built in: Exam Mode Lockdown, AI-usage tracking, and device monitoring keep assessments honest.
The dreamAn AI tutor in every student's pocket, an assistant beside every teacher, and real data behind every education decision.
One passport, one life: care that never loses your story.
Already completed
HaddyCare is built: an end-to-end healthcare system connecting public and private hospitals to a central government health network, from patient records to clinic operations. The backbone the National Health Passport runs on.
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By 2035
A National Health Passport for every Gambian, recognised across the entire network of public and private hospitals. The central system becomes an AI-assisted hub powering satellite health centers, with telehealth in every region and drones carrying medicine to the hardest-to-reach.
Born in Basse
her record begins at birth
Checkup at a satellite center
minutes from home, linked to the hub
Any hospital, anywhere
every public and private facility sees her full record instantly
Telehealth from home
a specialist, without the journey
Medicine by drone
reaching her village in hours, not days
One record, shared across every public and private hospital in The Gambia. No file lost, no history retold, no one left behind.
The dreamNo Gambian ever again retells their medical history from scratch. One record, every hospital, for life.
Connected toLocal LanguagesInclusion
Health · HaddyCare09 / 19
Project 2035 · Digital Oral History · Hamanteh
A nation's memory, recorded in our own voices.
Already completed
Hamanteh, the nationwide digital oral-history project, is under way in Banjul South: crowd-sourced recordings of family lineages, folklore, and living memory. 1,000+ recordings already gathered.
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By 2035
Every community recorded, and each completed area crowned with a Hamanteh Day: a community documentary premiere, and a day of getting to know each other.
The corpus
Community recordings, gathered by the communities themselves, become a growing corpus of Gambian Wolof speech and story: the raw material of everything on the right.
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Wolof LLM training: the corpus teaches AI to truly speak Gambian Wolof.
Ancestry & history chatbot: ask about any person or place, and hear its story.
AI-generated documentaries: each community's history, told back to it on film.
The dreamOur grandchildren will hear our grandparents' voices, telling our history in our own words.
Connected toLocal LanguagesLibraries
Digital Oral History · Hamanteh10 / 19
Project 2035 · Local languages
AI that speaks Wolof, Mandinka, and Fula.
Already completed
A working Wolof-speaking AI prototype, trained on local data, with the Hamanteh corpus now feeding it real Gambian voices.
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By 2035
Health, education, news, and government services delivered by voice in our own tongues, bridging the digital divide and instantly multiplying how many Gambians can be reached, whatever they can read.
Hamanteh recordings
community by community
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Local-Language AI
understands and speaks our languages
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Health · Education · Government · News
by voice, for everyone
The dreamA grandmother in Basse, a farmer in Sapu, a young mother who never finished school: each asks in Wolof, and is answered in Wolof.
Built for everyone, including those too often left out.
Already completed
Screen-reader support standing at the National Library and the GOVI School for the Blind. Digital Eyes is started, and seeking funding.
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By 2035
Accessible technology across public institutions, voice access for those who cannot read, and Digital Eyes in the hands of blind Gambians nationwide.
Digital Eyes
An AI-assisted phone for blind Gambians, fully voice-first: it reads books and signs aloud, identifies the world around you, and navigates with danger detection and alerts. Local languages are coming, through the Local-Language AI project.
The dreamNeither disability, nor distance, nor literacy ever again decides who gets to take part.
Connected toLocal LanguagesLibrariesTrusted Information
Inclusion & accessibility12 / 19
Project 2035 · Trusted information
A public that can trust what it sees and hears.
Just delivered · Built with the Ministry of Information
National Misinformation & Disinformation Response Center (NMDRC)
The Gambia's first dedicated institution for identifying, analysing, and countering false information, from AI-generated content to election disinformation.
AI verification tools
Automated detection of manipulated images, audio, and video circulating on Gambian social media.
Public reporting portal
A WhatsApp-accessible hotline and web portal where any Gambian can submit content for verification.
Journalist toolkit
Resources, training, and access to verification infrastructure for working journalists and fact-checkers.
ECOWAS-aligned model
Designed as a replicable small-state model for information resilience across the region.
GPU training: free AI & online-safety workshops for Gambian journalists
AUB: AI and digital-literacy training delivered to the Broadcasters Union of The Gambia (AUB)
The dreamWhen it matters most, every Gambian can find out what is actually true.
Connected toAI CapacityLocal LanguagesInclusion
Trusted information · NMDRC13 / 19
Project 2035 · Agriculture
Better harvests, guided from the sky.
Already completed
Working with the CPCU on drone mapping for agriculture and an asset-inventory management system. The pilot farmer-registration system is built, covering over 80,000 Gambian farmers.
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By 2035
Drone-based crop monitoring and advisory tools across farming regions, helping plan, raise yields, and adapt to a changing climate.
Drone mapping
fields and assets
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Crop & asset data
analysed for insight
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Farmer advisory
plan, yield, resilience
The dreamEvery farmer plants with knowledge, not just hope, and the harvests show it.
Connected toLocal LanguagesAI Capacity
Agriculture & climate14 / 19
Project 2035 · Juvenile justice · Second Chance
In as kids who made mistakes. Out with skills, not scars.
Already completed
Computers donated to the prisons, and digital classes for young inmates now taking shape.
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By 2035
Weekend classes in every juvenile facility, and Second Chance job placements waiting on release, so young people can prove themselves instead of hardening.
Weekend classes inside
digital skills while serving
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Skills & confidence
something to walk out with
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Job placement on release
a Second Chance employer ready
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A clean shot
proving themselves, not reoffending
The dreamA young person leaves with a skill, a placement, and a future, not a harder sentence than they arrived with.
Connected toLibrariesEducation
Juvenile justice · Second Chance15 / 19
Project 2035 · AI capacity
A country fluent in AI.
Already completed
AI training already delivered: formal cohorts for banks, public agencies, and institutions, and free public trainings open to everyone.
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By 2035
A national AI literacy program for youth, civil servants, and journalists, and AI as a translation layer into technology: you speak, it works the complicated machinery, so anyone can use tools that once needed specialists.
Learn to use AI
formal cohorts and free trainings
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AI as the bridge into tech
speak plainly, and the machinery works for you
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Use it everywhere, build some of it
farms, clinics, classrooms, newsrooms, startups
The dreamEvery Gambian using AI to reach everything technology offers, and some of us building it.
National Health Passport · digital public infrastructure
IFC
Entrepreneurship, workforce, innovation
AI training · youth innovation · Digital Jollof
ECOWAS / FAO
Information integrity, regional resilience, agriculture
Information integrity & press · CPCU drone agriculture
Where partners come in18 / 19
By 2035, this is a prosperous Gambia where young people stay to build it.
The plan is here. The work has started, self-funded and already delivering. Technology is just a tool; development is the goal. What remains is the partnership to scale it.