A
non-profit foundation, Data Science Nigeria (DSN) has unveiled the phase 1 of
its Community Centre and Artificial Intelligence Hub for cross-industry and
academic research, at the campus of the University of Lagos (UNILAG), reports ITREALMS.
According
to the visioner of Data Science Nigeria, Mr. Bayo Adekanmbi, who is Chief
Transformation Officer (CTO) of MTN, a hands-on data scientist and a doctoral
researcher who uses data science algorithms to understand low-income customers,
DSN is to accelerate applications of artificial intelligence to solve social
and business problems through a strategic partnership.
ITREALMS gathered that DSN has organised free bootcamps, industry summits, online free
courses and provide internship/direct job placements for the Nigerian data
science community.
A press
statement made available to ITREALMS indicated that the Hub launched on Friday,
June 8 at the university campus with the Vice Chancellor, Professor Oluwatoyin
Temitayo Ogundipe and Dr. Uyi Stewart, Director, Global Development Strategy,
Data & Analytics, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, USA, in
attendance.
DSN’s
drive, ITREALMS gathered, has strategic partnership between the academic
community, industry, and local and international technology hubs similar to the
highly successful Stanford University-Silicon Valley model.
DSN is
committed to supporting Nigerian students and encouraging them to turn their
academic research into innovative start-ups or social enterprises aligned with
millennial developmental goals. DSN has a particular interest in solving local
problems in the fields of health, education, agriculture and financial
inclusion.
In
addition, the Hub will serve as the community centre for data science
enthusiasts and experts to fraternize, learn, share ideas and participate in
local and international projects. DSN also plans to use the Hub for
face-to-face masterclasses, industry meet-ups, and dial-in conferences with its
over 100+ mentors from across the globe. Data science practitioners can also
participate in many industry data projects as interns, freelancers or experts
at the Hub.
The Hub
features modern data collection tools including biometric readers, an AWS AI
DeepLens Camera, Google Clips, Intel Movidius Neural Stick, GPS tracking
devices, Bionic Nature Observing Device, Internet-of-Things suite and many
others.
The Hub’s
unveiling ceremony will also include the announcement of its highly successful
learning bootcamp/hackathon, titled, Deep Learning Nigeria, to be held October
10-15, 2018. This will be a fully residential, all-expense-paid learning camp focused
on deepening financial inclusion through the use of machine/deep learning for
credit risk scoring, identity image/voice authentication, ATM point-of-presence
location optimization using geospatial data, and biometrics/voice analytics.
This will be complemented with a first-of-its-kind Inter-Campus Machine
Learning Competition to recruit the best 75 students for a Data Science
bootcamp, with opportunity to win N1 million through participation in Kaggle
competitions and bootcamp quizzes.
DSN prides
itself of building the largest network of data science mentors worldwide
through its through its #MentorAfricanDataScientists programme, through which
Nigerian students are mentored by international data scientists. In its
eighteen months of operation, DSN has incubated four data science concepts
which are being tested for real world applications.
DSN, further claimed its positioned to solve
social/business problems and galvanize data science knowledge revolution, which
could position Nigeria to become the outsourcing hub for international Data
Science/Advanced Analytics/Big Data projects, with opportunity to access at
least 1 per cent share of the global big data and analytics market, valued at
$150b in 2017 ($203b in 2020).
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