Nairobi, Kenya Feb 17, 2021 (Issuewire.com) - The Artificial Intelligence Centre of Excellence (AICE) partnered with AI Commons and the Financial Sector Deepening Kenya (FSDK) to establish an AI Commons Artificial Intelligence (AI) training that will prep the next level of data scientists and AI engineers who will bridge the knowledge gap in AI between Africa and the rest of the world.
The program is designed for working professionals and graduates and leverages AI Commons’ ecosystem and expertise, and FSDK’s understanding of local needs for growth. It includes interactive live classes, access to teaching assistants, practical lab works and online resources.
The collaboration stemmed out of a mutual understanding between the three parties on the need to create AI knowledge hubs in Africa that will benefit various players across industries for sustainable development goals.
AICE’s leverage of the AI Commons training approach is aimed at developing practical machine learning specialists with hands-on capabilities in solving relevant problems, by growing the capabilities of existing data scientists and extending them to machine learning.
“AICE is spearheading the development of Africa's AI ecosystem through the world's leading innovation platforms. The partnership with FSDK and AI Commons to provide AI training to African data scientists ensures that Africa’s present and future in AI is bright. The training will catalyse solution-based AI initiatives that can be integrated into multiple industries in Kenya and Africa to solve some of our most pertinent challenges,” said AICE co-Founder, Claire Matuka.
AI Commons Director of Initiatives Gilles Fayad said “This partnership further strengthens our mission to create common AI knowledge hubs for AI for social good that will bring benefits to key stakeholders using the technology towards social and economic transformation. We see the great potential for Africa to use AI in creating solutions that will shape the development of the continent. We believe problems & challenges are best solved with the wisdom of those experiencing them. This training is part of our AI Capacity Building initiative to democratize access to AI across the world, by addressing the needs of the local communities and researchers. This program aims at developing the basis for a virtuous AI economy centered on benefiting the needs of the communities”.
The CEO for FSDK Tamara Cook said on the partnership “We believe that the right education and competencies can unlock human potential and make the world a better place. We are driven by the desire to train local AI engineers to solve our problems and create a platform for further collaboration where multi industry stakeholders from development partners, civil societies, entrepreneurs, academia, government, private sectors, and all industry players can harness the common good of the potential of AI in enhancing health, agriculture, education, good governance, financial independence and general economic growth”.
AICE welcomed its first cohort of students across Africa in December and kicked off the 4 months dual online-onsite program this January. “Our ultimate aim is to have a knowledge centre that will have the largest pool of AI experts from Africa trained by top AI experts from around the world, using practical use cases from companies facing challenges that can be solved using AI.” further stated Matuka.
The inaugural AICE AI Training program has 30 students from Kenya and will roll out other cohorts for East Africa to ultimately include the rest of Africa by 2022. Africa has taken major leaps in digitization, the current environment under Covid 19 pandemic requires a rapid digital transformation of organizations with AI and data science becoming critical new tools to facilitate the shift.
ABOUT AI COMMONS
AI Commons is a nonprofit organization supported by the ecosystem of AI practitioners, entrepreneurs, academia, NGOs, AI industry players and organizations/individuals focused on the common good.
The organization has gathered the best minds in academia, industry, and though leaders in AI to support the creation of a knowledge hub in AI that can be accessible by anyone, that can help inform governance, policy making, and investments around the deployment of AI solutions for the benefit of people and communities, and be a catalyst for supporting diversity and inclusivity in how AI is deployed for sustainable development goals.
ABOUT AICE
AICE’s mission is to champion AI solutions, build capacity, demystify Artificial Intelligence in Africa, as well as create ethical AI solutions that tackle Africa challenges effectively. AICE aims to build innovations that will create jobs, and drive human wealth within the artificial intelligence landscape.
ABOUT FSDK
FSD Kenya was established in 2001 to support the development of inclusive finance as a means to stimulate wealth creation and reduce poverty. In 2005, FSD Kenya was constituted as an independent Trust. We operate under the supervision of professional trustees, KPMG Kenya, with policy guidance from a programme investment committee (PIC). Our core development partners are the UK’s Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO), the Swedish International Development Agency (Sida), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.
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