By Dele Ogbodo
The Federal Government through the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR), a subsidiary of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on Friday, said its target is to take Nigeria to be among the top 25% Artificial Intelligence and Robotics players in the globe.
Speaking at the graduation of 2,785 young Nigerians from the NITDA Artificial Intelligence Developers Training (NAIDT) programme at the Centre in Wuye District in Abuja, the Director General/CEO of NITDA, Mr. Kashifu Inuwa, said the programme was borne out of the need to accelerate the capacity of young Nigerians in AI, which is one of the most highly demanded technology talent across the world.
The NITDA boss, acknowledged that the Minister of Innovation, Communications and Digital Economy, Mr. Bosun Tijani has a big appetite for AI and is eager to putting Nigeria among the top 25 percentile global map.
On how the project was started and conceptualized, Inuwa, said: “This journey started like a play when NITDA’s Developers Group (NDG) visited me in my office where I challenged them to find solution to the rate of rejection of NYSC members and SIWES in MDAs.
“The question that I asked myself then was, if we reject these young ones, where will they go, yet government made it mandatory for them to undertake NYSC and I know that corps move from one agency to the other and get rejected.
“That was why we conceptualized this idea to send them to the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) to get them trained on skills that can help them in their career paths or even change their career through learning new skills.
“So, I challenged them and today they have turned that barrier into a remarkable reality. So far, we have trained 2,785 young Nigerians from different areas and regions on AI.”
According to him, AI is the future and the future can be unpredictable, adding that Nigeria and Nigerians must be part of building that future through AI.
Inuwa, acknowledged that Nigeria and Africa can no longer take the back seat anymore when it comes to technology, stressing…that is why we want to use AI to drive our growth and development.
While urging the graduates to go for research grants on AI, he stressed that they must partake in the formulation of the country’s National AI Policy as according to him, the policy cannot be formulated in isolation.
He said: “Today, we are changing that narrative because we want to incorporate and formulate the policy with impact and change makers like you and that is why we want you to be part of this research and contribute to the policy formulation as well.
“I learnt that some of you have secured jobs and some of you have started your own start-up and working on ideas to solve real life problems. I also learnt that you have started working and researching on innovation-driven startups such as ElonosiaAI, FundusAI, Gyronics and other solutions and I believe that if you do more the government can assist you in taking the solution to the market.”
NCAIR, according to him, is providing the enabling environment for prospective participants to come and innovate and also network because innovation doesn’t happen in isolation.
While advocating that Nigeria must be at the global AI forefront, Inuwa, urged them to collaborate as founders to grow together to provide solutions, assuring that NITDA will render all the necessary support to make them succeed.
However, he berated the 15% low level of women participation in the programme, explaining: “In AI, we don’t want to leave anybody behind because AI is beyond just normal software or system engineering.
“It is a social engineering because we are building system that will make decision for us so if you are excluded from that because AI can be biased when it comes to decision making as we have seen that with the Amazon recruitment system where it rejects any CV that has something to do with women.”
According to the DG, the system was configured to look at high performing staff within the company and because the company is dominated by men the system assumes that for you to be a high performer you must be a man. So, to bridge that gap we need to bring more women into this programme, he added.
On concern expressed for AI in some quarters, he said: “Part of the fear in humanity that we have about AI is that can we control it because we don’t want to build system that we cannot control and so we want to build system that we can control when we have everybody being part of building that system and that is why in Nigeria and Africa we don’t want to be left behind.
“We want to be at the forefront because we are the next frontier of technology. We have the youngest population we have the digitally native population that use this system and so we should not allow other part of the world to build system for us anymore. This should be a stepping stone for you to start.”
In a remark, the National Director of NCAIR, Engr. Yau Garba, acknowledged that training came about through directives from the NITDA CEO, adding: “The DG directed that we run this programme 24/7 in several batches so that we can have maximum number of Nigerians benefitting from the programmes.”
The programme, Garba, said started in August 2022, adding that today we are a year plus on the programme, acknowledging that the DG provided the necessary supports for the programme to keep running. We have trained over 2,785 participants with several success stories, he said.
“The programme is all about training developers in the technical session and training AI users in the non-technical track.
“We have been running the technical part of the programme here in Wuye in this facility and the non-technical track we have been running it at the NITDA Headquarters and that was exclusively for interns comprising of NYSC corps members and serving students users. So, far we have been progressing in the programme and participants have been increasing daily.
“We are here today to celebrate this milestone even as we look forward to continue to provide other resources.” The Director, said.
A beneficiary of the programme, Miss Amina Shiga, a 400-level student of Abubakar Tafawa University, Bauchi, who is now a Microsoft Ambassador, said: “I actually came to NITDA for my SIWES programme and prior to coming here I didn’t have any technical knowledge about AI.
“However, coming here I started with the beginners’ programme and I actually partook on the machine learning programme, moved to the AI lab where I worked on several other programmes in real time.”
While thanking NITDA for the opportunity, she acknowledged that her journey on AI has been a fulfilled one, adding that she is now able to educate others due to the SIWES programmes and also my achievements here helped secured opportunities like Microsoft Ambassador on how to teach upcoming students to learn tech through AI, adding that her AI story cannot be complete without NITDA.
Mr. Tayyibb Zubair, also a 400-level student at the Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria, acknowledged that he came into the Centre as an intern.
He said: “Prior to this I have always thought that writing code was very stressful and it wasn’t something that I thought appealing prior to coming here, but however after passing through the several trainings where we were exposed to the fundamentals of data analysis, data science and deep machine learning I have to say that my whole perspective of programme learning has changed.”
Zubair, said he is looking forward to developing financial solutions for businesses in Nigeria. He expressed appreciation to NITDA and NCAIR for the opportunity given to undergo the AI programme a reality.