⏱️ Key Takeaways!
- Two Nigerian developers, Joel Olawanle and Elijah Asaolu, have created AI Reporter, a WordPress plugin that helps writers overcome the challenge of starting a draft.
- The tool leverages AI to generate a structured first draft based on source URLs, style guides, and previous articles, ensuring consistency in voice and tone.
- AI Reporter is set to be open-source, aiming to foster community contributions and adaptability, with plans to include multilingual support for Nigerian languages like Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo.
Writing is a daunting task, especially when faced with a blank page. Two Nigerian developers, Joel Olawanle and Elijah Asaolu, are tackling this challenge head-on. With their open-source AI assistant, AI Reporter, they aim to revolutionize writing by helping authors overcome the initial hurdle of starting a draft.
The Challenge of the Blank Page
Every writer knows the struggle of staring at a blank screen, unsure of where to begin. The process of gathering scattered sources, ideas, and intentions into a coherent first draft can be overwhelming. Olawanle and Asaolu, who have collectively written over 500 technical articles, understand this better than most. Their solution, AI Reporter, is designed to eliminate the blank page and help writers get into their flow faster.
Starting to write is sort of like the hardest part. Imagine having a tool that can help you start.
AI Reporter: A Practical Solution
AI Reporter is not just another generic AI tool. It is built from a deep understanding of a writer’s workflow. Olawanle and Asaolu have extensive experience writing for major tech platforms like freeCodeCamp, Logrocket, Hackmamba, and Kinsta. They know that maintaining a consistent voice is crucial for any publication. Their tool addresses this by allowing writers to input source URLs, style guides, and links to previously published articles. This ensures that the generated draft aligns with the publication’s tone and style.
AI and large language models are powerful, but they also hallucinate.
Asaolu explains that AI Reporter pulls content and context from the provided URLs to generate a strong first draft. This draft is not a polished final article but a well-structured, fact-grounded, and voice-aligned starting point. This frees writers to focus on analysis, nuance, and narrative depth—aspects that only humans can provide.
From Scrappy Beginnings to Innovative Solutions
The journey of Olawanle and Asaolu is as inspiring as the tool they created. Their partnership began at Olusegun Agagu University of Science and Technology, where they bonded over their love for code. Despite not having laptops, they wrote code in notebooks and debugged at school. This grit and determination led them to publish technical articles during the 2020 lockdown, which eventually turned into a career.
We saw a tweet in late 2020 saying technical writing could get you paid gigs. That’s when we realised—wait, what we’ve been doing is actually a career.
Their success is not just personal but also rooted in community. They have created tools and content that have benefited others, including a certificate generator and an open-source Next.js boilerplate. This community-driven mindset is evident in their plans for AI Reporter.
A Tool for the Community
AI Reporter is intended to be open-source, allowing other developers to contribute and adapt it to their needs. The goal is to foster a community around the tool, focusing on adoption and impact rather than revenue. Olawanle and Asaolu also plan to include multilingual support, considering Nigeria’s diverse media environment. They envision the tool generating news in languages like Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo, making it more accessible to a broader audience.
We thought about platforms like BBC and others that publish news in Hausa, Yoruba, and Igbo. One thing AI is really good at is translation.
The developers are optimistic about the tool’s potential. They believe it can generate translated stories effortlessly, making tech news more accessible in various Nigerian languages.
The Future of AI-Assisted Writing
AI Reporter represents a significant step forward in AI-assisted writing. By leveraging AI to handle the heavy lifting of drafting, it allows writers to focus on the creative aspects of their work. The open-source nature of the tool ensures that it will continue to evolve and improve, driven by community contributions. As Olawanle and Asaolu continue to refine AI Reporter, they are paving the way for a future where writing is more efficient, accessible, and community-driven.
For writers in Cameroon and across Africa, AI Reporter could be a game-changer. It offers a practical solution to the challenges of starting a draft, ensuring that writers can focus on what they do best—crafting compelling narratives.
