Every company is told to embrace AI. We wanted to do it on our own terms: on hardware we control, with no per-use bill, and with a person approving everything that matters. The result is UNDERDOG, My African Dream's own AI desk.
Ten desks
UNDERDOG's desks come straight from the routine work of running the business: Customer Support, Tax and Filing Watcher, Billing and Subscribers, Bookkeeping, HR and Payroll, Security, Systems Watcher, Family Tree Curation, Comms, and Legal and POPIA. Each desk has its own rules and its own knowledge, and learns from corrections.
How a task runs
- A person gives a desk a task, with the documents, spreadsheets or screen grabs it needs attached, the way one would brief a colleague.
- The desk reads its rules, its knowledge and the attached files, does the work and comes back.
- Anything that would change a system, send a message or file a return comes back as a proposal: a person approves it, changes it or refuses it.
- Every step, every file and every decision is on the record.
The underdog wins by working harder and smarter, and by never forgetting who it works for.
Why we called it UNDERDOG
African companies are often the underdog: smaller budgets, fewer servers, less attention. UNDERDOG is a reminder that a small team with its own tools, its own data and its own discipline can do the work of a large one. Its models run on our own hardware in South Africa, at no cost per question, and nothing of ours leaves our servers to get an answer.
Only for us, for now
UNDERDOG answers only approved devices, and then only people signed in with MAD-ID. It is an internal tool, and it will stay locked down until it has earned more trust.
Zuko Leonard Rabotapi built UNDERDOG and decided its ten desks from the routine work of Central Command.