ACTS Executive Director, Prof. Tom Ogada, implored AI4D Africa scholars to focus on completion of their PhD studies and strive to generate new knowledge on AI and ML to address key socio-economic challenges facing the continent.
The AI4D Africa Scholarship project held a successful summer school in Mombasa, Kenya, bringing together more than 75 participants – PhD/Masters’ students, supervisors and partners – from 22 universities in 18 African countries.
A group photo of PhD/Masters’ students, supervisors and partners under the AI4D Africa Scholarship project and ACTS staff who attended the Summer school in Mombasa, December 2022.
Under the stewardship of ACTS, students, supervisors, and partners under the project got an opportunity to explore ways of strengthening, mainstreaming, and expanding capacity building programs to enable wider access to emerging scholars in artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) in Africa.
Participants were taken through in-depth presentations on various aspects of AI and ML including intellectual property, commercialization of research outputs, artificial intelligence research and ethics, understanding responsible AI development and deployment, strengthening machine learning skills, gender and AI in African context, artificial intelligence and research policy and resource mobilization
The presentations were followed by insightful discussions and sharing of experiences by participants on different issues relating to AI and ML. While at it, supervisors, students and partners were urged to align their research projects with existing ethical standards and human rights components.
ACTS Executive Director, Prof. Tom Ogada, implored AI4D Africa scholars to focus on completion of PhD studies, generate knowledge on AI and ML to address key socio-economic challenges facing the continent and devise effective strategies to strengthen and sustain the network.
In addition, the short courses offered to beneficiaries should be mainstreamed and made available not only to the beneficiaries but to a wider group so as to enhance the capacity of scholars in AI and ML in the continent.
The AI4D Africa Scholarship intends to transform into a continental network that will blaze the trail of AI and Ml in Africa through awareness and training.
The network gained more impetus during the meeting as students, supervisors and partners got to deepen knowledge on their research fields, take stock and strategize on the next steps.
Meanwhile, AI4D Africa Scholarship beneficiaries should interrogate their research concepts or outputs with a view to identifying what can be patented by examining whether the idea is useful to industry and whether it is novel.
Apart from ACTS, other partners that form the AI4D Africa Scholarship network include Université Cheikh Anta Diop de Dakar (UCAD), Institute of Humanities (University of Cape Town, University of California; Research ICT Africa (RIA); and University of Linkoping (LiU), Sweden.
