How AI Could Spark A Jobs Revolution In Africa: Sam Alemeyahu's Vision

Forbes

30-07-2025

While the world debates whether AI will destroy jobs, Sam Alemayehu wants to talk about the ones that never existed in the first place.
The Ethiopian-American investor and entrepreneur has built his career around challenging assumptions — whether by turning landfills into power plants or by turning scarcity into opportunity. Known as 'Garbage Sam' for his pioneering work on Africa's first waste-to-energy facility, Alemayehu is now applying that same systems lens to a broader question: How do we design abundance?
In a recent essay for Rest of World, Alemayehu introduced the provocative concept of 'latent jobs' — roles that should exist but don't, because legacy systems made them economically impossible. He argues that AI, far from being a threat, could finally unleash a new tier of professionals across Africa — if we let it.
We spoke about waste, imagination, and what it means to build systems designed for everyone.Known as 'Garbage Sam' for his pioneering work on Africa's first waste-to-energy facility, Sam ... More Alemayehu is now applying that same systems lens to a broader question: How do we design abundance?
Q&A
Sylvana Q. Sinha: In your recent piece for Rest of World, you argue that AI could help create new jobs across Africa — roles that never existed before. What kind of jobs are you talking about, and why do they matter?
Sam Alemayehu: I call them 'Latent Jobs.' They are essential roles that have never emerged — not because there's no demand, but because the cost of creating and sustaining them under our traditional systems is too high. We don't just have a shortage of professionals in Africa; we have a shortage of affordable access to expertise.
Take healthcare. Ethiopia has fewer than 10,000 physicians for over 120 million people. But there are more Ethiopian-trained doctors in places like D.C. and Chicago than in the country itself. It's not a talent shortage — it's a system failure.
AI changes that. It breaks the cost structure. A radiologist's expertise can be delivered, in part, by an AI diagnostic tool for a fraction of the price. Suddenly, that 'latent job' — a role that previously didn't exist because it was economically unviable — becomes real. And not just one job, but thousands.Sylvana Q. Sinha: Fascinating! What's another example of a latent job?
Sam Alemayehu: It's a pattern that's emerging everywhere, creating an entirely new class of tech-enabled professionals. Think of a community health worker in Lusaka using an AI that analyzes a baby's cry to detect birth asphyxia instantly. Picture an agronomist in Ethiopia using a drone to guide a hundred farms at once, stopping crop disease in its tracks. Imagine a paralegal in Lagos delivering affordable, AI-vetted contracts to small businesses right through WhatsApp. Or a surveyor in rural Peru using AI to map a ravine and design a safe footbridge in an afternoon, a study that once took months and was prohibitively expensive.
Each of these was a 'latent job.: The need was immense, but the old model was too slow and too costly. Technology is the catalyst that finally makes these essential roles real, affordable, and scalable.Sylvana Q. Sinha: I love this framing. It reminds me of Nobel laureate Amartya Sen's insight from his work on famines, especially in Poverty and Famines (1981): People don't starve because there's no food — they starve because they can't access it. It's not about scarcity, but about systems.
You call this systemic failure the 'Scarcity Tax.' What do you mean by that?
Sam Alemayehu: The Scarcity Tax is the invisible, uncounted cost of a system that fails to make expertise accessible. It's a price paid daily by citizens, farmers, and entrepreneurs, particularly in the Global South.
It's the crop lost because a farmer couldn't get an agronomist's advice. It's the failed business because a founder couldn't afford a lawyer. It's the child who dies from a treatable illness because a doctor wasn't nearby.
What's tragic is that this tax isn't necessary. It's not about lacking intelligence or motivation. It's about a broken system for distributing knowledge. AI gives us a chance to redesign that system — and finally make expertise abundant.Sylvana Q. Sinha: You've been called 'Garbage Sam' — a nickname that started at a landfill in Addis Ababa. How did waste become your life's lens?
Sam Alemayehu: I got that name when I led the team that built Africa's first major waste-to-energy facility. I spent a lot of time at the landfill — and what I saw shocked me. It wasn't trash; it was a graveyard of value. Plastics, metals, nutrients, energy — all of it buried.
Nature doesn't waste anything. Everything gets reused. So when we treat resources as disposable, that's not a garbage problem — it's a design problem. The same thinking that leads us to bury useful materials is what leads us to waste land, water, and human potential. That's the war I've committed to fighting: the war on waste in all its forms.Sylvana Q. Sinha: You've also written about the waste embedded in how we make things — from food to steel to cement. What gives you hope that we can build differently?
Sam Alemayehu: Once you put on the 'anti-waste' lens, you see how inefficient our physical economy is. Food production alone is the leading driver of deforestation, land degradation, and wildlife extinction. The FAO projects that by 2050, just to meet protein demand, we'd need to deforest an area twice the size of India. That's not just unsustainable — it's apocalyptic.
But we now have tools to break that pattern. Synthetic biology can grow proteins with a fraction of the land and water. New chemical processes can produce cement or textiles with near-zero emissions. Innovation becomes the engine for deconstructing waste — not just at the end of the supply chain, but at the source.Sylvana Q. Sinha: What does your vision of an AI-powered, waste-free Africa look like in 20 years?
Sam Alemayehu: It's a world where waste — of talent, resources, and opportunity — is no longer the default. A world where a mother in Kampala can access high-quality care, a farmer in Ethiopia can access agronomic advice, and a young entrepreneur in Lagos can get legal support — all augmented by AI.
It's also a world where we rewild vast areas of land, because we've finally decoupled economic growth from physical extraction. Where technology doesn't replace nature, but learns from it — circular, adaptive, and efficient.
That's the future I'm building toward. A world designed for abundance — not for the privileged few, but for everyone.Sylvana Q. Sinha: What would it take to actually realize this vision — of millions of AI-augmented jobs and a waste-free economy? Who needs to act, & how?
Sam Alemayehu: This future isn't inevitable; it has to be built. It requires a coordinated effort from three groups:
First, entrepreneurs and innovators. They are the ones on the ground, building the tools, training the new workforce, and fine-tuning these models for local languages, cultures, and realities. This is a bottom-up revolution.
Second, largest corporate champions. Companies like MTN, Safaricom, and big regional banks in Africa have a historic opportunity. They need to become the first customers and partners for this new wave of innovation. By integrating these AI-augmented services into their vast distribution networks, they can create the market and accelerate adoption overnight.
Finally, policymakers. We need a new regulatory imagination. The old rules for credentialing and liability were designed for a world of scarcity. We must build modern frameworks that judge innovation based on its effectiveness, not just on traditional credentials. We need faster, clearer pathways to professional legitimacy for this new, AI-augmented workforce.
It's symbiotic — entrepreneurs build, corporations scale, and policymakers clear the path. If those three groups act in concert, this vision becomes a reality much faster than anyone can imagine.Sylvana Q. Sinha: Do you see opportunities for investors in this space? What kinds of investors can be part of this future?
Sam Alemayehu:
The opportunity is massive — it fights waste on two critical, parallel fronts:
On one side, you have the chance to finance the redesign of our industrial economy — food and materials that are cleaner, cheaper, and superior to legacy models.
On the other side, you have the Latent Jobs revolution — unlocking the 'old world's' advantages in high value skills in healthcare, law, engineering through AI. That's how we can build a workforce for a world of abundance.
This isn't just theory — it's what we are building. Through Cambridge Industries Ventures (CI Ventures), we are backing businesses that are building the "manufacturing of the future". Through our Latent Jobs Fund, we are building and scaling the platforms that unleash that AI-augmented workforce.
It will take a whole ecosystem of capital to build this future — and we are committed to being a catalyst in that process.Sylvana Q. Sinha: Your work often focuses on Africa — but isn't the potential here much broader? After all, emerging markets account for 80% of the global population, and more than 70% of that is in Asia. Why limit this opportunity to Africa?
Sam Alemayehu: You're right, this is a global opportunity. The 'Latent Jobs' thesis applies anywhere human potential is stifled by outdated systems.
My focus often begins in Africa because it's personal, but more importantly, I see it as the ultimate proving ground. With the youngest and fastest-growing population, the need is most acute, which forces the most resilient and scalable solutions.
However, I don't see this as a one-way street where innovations flow from Africa outward. The transformation will be shared, with innovation happening simultaneously across the Global South. The key will be to build partnerships and strong collaborations between these emerging innovation hubs in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and Africa to accelerate this new future together.Sylvana Q. Sinha: Thank you. In a world obsessed with what AI might take away, Sam Alemayehu invites us to see what it can finally make possible. The future of work, it turns out, may begin where the world never thought to look.