The PJ Patterson Institute for Africa-Caribbean Advocacy is set to launch a pilot study using artificial intelligence (AI) designed to enhance educational outcomes and transform growth and shared prosperity among the people of both regions.

Patterson, the statesman in residence at the institute and Jamaica’s sixth prime minister, revealed the initiative in a statement on the weekend he celebrated his 90th birthday. Patterson was born on April 10, 1935.

He said the institute is fully engaged in finalising the design and implementation of a pilot study for an AI hub to advance education, research, technological innovation, and new industrial development in Africa and the Caribbean.

“This initiative, in collaboration with Afreximbank, will be formally launched by early June,” Patterson said.

He noted that the institute’s second annual symposium held in February 2025, entitled ‘Educational Transformation in Africa and The Caribbean: Centring African Heritage and Identity’ concluded that education is the critical key to achieving global economic market power and securing inclusive prosperity for all our people.

He said it was imperative for African and Caribbean leaders to forge and pursue a bold and exciting adventure with fixity of purpose to realise its full potential.

“We dare not wait patiently for the developed and powerful, in accordance with their national interests, to prevent our entry into the halls and corridors that determine our economic well-being, human flourishing, and civic progress,” the former prime minister and elder statesman said.

Education, he insisted, “has to be catapulted as the most formidable weapon in our arsenal for progress in a world where we have been, for ages, victims of human savagery and exploitation of our natural resources”.

As such, he said the institute is convinced that the present crises of global turbulence and catastrophic uncertainties “oblige us to make these the best of times and no longer the worst”.

“As we build on the rich heritage of our pioneering advances in mathematics, medicine, architecture, and philosophy, we must not shirk the challenge to empower this and future generations with the tools to navigate and shape the global technological landscape,” Patterson said.

“Indeed, we have no choice in order to live. We are compelled to seize the unique moment to pivot in building an economy that is innovative and accelerates the flow of our knowledge-intensive skills. Our jobs must include high value-added outputs and the use of our natural resources as equity investment in global initiatives. We who belong to global Africa must spur our own AI development and digital transformation for our own growth and shared prosperity,” Patterson argued.

He said the symbiotic partnership between Africa and the Caribbean is “deliberately designed by us as free people of sovereign nations, based on voluntary choices, to reflect the exercise of our political relationships that affect our collective economic fortunes”.

“It will be grounded on the recognition of our capacities, endowments, overlaps and comparative advantages. It will reflect our determination to occupy and enjoy our rightful place on the single planet where all humankind must equitably share and inhabit together in its stewardship to dwell in peace and prosperity,” Patterson said.