In the last eight years, Data Science Nigeria (DSN) has has raised and trained over 900,000 young Nigerians as AI talents and professionals benefitting from the emerging but vast fields of technology, data science and artificial intelligence, thereby recording an impressive 90% of its vision, two years short of the one decade target timeline.
Nurtured by Dr. Bayo Adekanmbi, DSN commenced operation as a Non Governmental Organization (NGO) in 2016 with the vision to democratise the knowledge of data science by training One million young Nigerians/AI talents to be job ready to tap into and benefit from the growing global AI & technology space, and the Internet of Things (IoT) revolution. The DSN Founder noted underscored the fact that data is the new oil of the World and Nigeria must be well positioned to take advantage of the development just as India and other tech inclined nations.
This laudable feat came to fore at the on-going DSN 2024 Artificial Intelligence Boot Camp, 8th in the series, holding at the University of Lagos where a total of 178 young Nigerians are honing their skills in data science and artificial intelligence in preparatory to exploring the vast opportunities the field offers individuals, professionals, the nation and the world at large.
DSN’s mission to empower and train 1 million AI talents pan-Nigeria is perhaps seen as ambitious as it extends to every nook and cranny of the country. “The mission is to empower them with the skills of data science be it data analytics, machine learning, data engineering and all the diverse segments of artificial intelligence” reiterates Chinazo Anebelundu, Project Director for the DSN 2024 AI Boot Camp.
Anebelundu in a chat with Brandcrunch which also featured Omotayo Olorunfemi, Community & Project Manager, Community & Project Manager, DSN at the University of Lagos, venue of the 5-day all-expense paid Boot Camp, also added that the Boot Camp is part of the motivation for the young AI / tech enthusiasts. “Annually, we organize Boot camps where we get young talents, hot brains, students who we have taught machines learning, python programming language in thir variouscommunities, we bring them together to learn from one another, expose them to current best practices in the field, AI applications and use cases”.
How does DSN pick its Boot camp beneficiaries? This is no doubt,the next logical question. AI simplifies complex issues. The 178 participants presently attending the 2024 Boot Camp emerged from thousands of entries! The standard is to make all interested participants across the country (community members) participate in a competitive online Hackathon which uses Zindi Hackathon for coders. A participant submits his entry online, with no human interference, the leader board automatically rates the Best performing models as they are submitted by participants. Therefore, selection is merit based as ratings are done automatically in order of quality. A cut-off is established in this case, first 200 out of thousands of entries submitted.
The DSN 2024 AI Boot Camp is featuring 25 speakers from across the globe as faculty to speak with participants, teach and motivate them. These are from sterling organisations such as ESRI, Microsoft, University Avenue, Madison; Stanford University; Boston University; Mastercard Foundation, Olabisi Onabanjo University; and Nit Hub among others.
While there are no one central theme for each edition, each year would always focus on the trending iissue, current evolution or development in the field of AI, the Project Director reveals.
For the current cohort, it’s about Large Language Model – this includes models like chatGPT – having AI models do simple tasks for you like drafing emails. It is otherwise known as generative AI. “We centre the activities of the 5-day event on trending or current practices in artificial intelligence. This year is about generative AI, machine learning, data analytics etc. We just ensure that we touch on current trends in AI. This is what we do always”, Chinazo affirms.
To ensure participants maximally benefit from the all-expense paid event, the schedule for the 5-day boot camp ensures that speaker sessions are further drilled down by hands-on classes to demonstrate what speakers have taught the class such include writing models, codes, data visualization, projects aimed at creating solutions to life issues, etc.
Participants come from as far as North-East, North Central, South- South, Bauchi, Gombe, Adamawa, Osun, Kwara, Abia, Imo, just name it. Although, the organizers do not have quota for each of the states or cities, but DSN has entrenched AI communities in cities and institutions across the country.
DSN communities are present in almost all higher institutions both public and private Universities, Polytechnics, and monotechnics in the country. “We keep penetrating higher institutions because what we found out is that there are no courses on Artificial Intelligence to be studied at postgraduate level, so this is the only opportunity to teach Nigerians through these communities and the events we have year-round.
To show the growing popularity and importance of the DSN brand, in about 8 years of operation, the NGO has members in 96 countries, and communities in 13 countries outside Nigeria. It boasts of 42 communities in different campuses -private and public Universities, Polytechnics and monotechnics; and 57 communities in various cities across Nigeria. It has a growing strength of 42,000 (still counting) members across its communities in the country, discloses the Community & Project Manager.
Through these DSN AI Campus communities and City Communities, Olorunfemi also noted that all year round, DSN mobilises facilitators to continue to teach members of these communities AI courses like Python programming language, Machine learning, Deep learning, etc among others. No wonder, the growing strength of the communities and geographic spread ensure members from far and near have equal opportunities to participate at the annual Boot camp events.
With less than 100,000 to go or 10% to meet its self imposed 1 million target, DSN isn’t about to slow down or feel accomplished. Instead, the vision is growing bigger, it’s now beyond democratising AI knowledge and raising awareness.” The vision is already expanding into other verticals such as institutional partnerships, and collaborations with both local and foreign organizations”.
The government and the nation are not left out in the collaborative efforts, DSN is leaving no stone unturned in being a key player in government’s effort to have a national AI strategy for the nation.
Initially, the motivation is primarily to train an equip young talents all over Nigeria but it goes beyond Nigeria. Nigeria is exporting talents in the fields of data science and artificial intelligence who are standing shoulders to shoulders with the best in the world. Young and brilliant talents are building solutions that improve the lives of everyday people.
Apart from opening and pioneering an altogether novel field in Nigeria, and the sub-region with verifiable success, it gladdens hearts that DSN is still obsessed with getting to the last mile though its profound AI community and hub system. The 8th DSN AI Boot camp ends in Lagos on Friday.
