A robust digital ecosystem that optimizes the benefits of artificial intelligence (AI) is needed for societal development. Innovationbed AI Labs by the Programos Amos nurtures young innovators for inclusive and ethical AI advancements in Nigeria, to bridge the knowledge gap and enable participation in global AI advancements.
The aim is to spread AI education across Nigeria's ethnic groups to ensure their involvement in various sectors such as government engagement, healthcare, education, and security. In particular, Amos advocates for a 35% youth engagement in AI across diverse areas like agriculture, finance, transportation, and environmental protection, as properly illustrated by EMMANUEL AMOS, Founder, Programos Foundation, Nigeria
READ THE FULL STATEMENT BELOW
“Thank you, Chair and distinguished speakers. I'm Amos Emmanuel from Nigeria, and I will be speaking on the digital ecosystem in Nigeria that we have, which we feel has to be in place so that we can optimize the benefits of artificial intelligence in society's development. So, I'll be looking at Innovationbed AI Lab, which is a multidisciplinary career transformation platform nurturing an ecosystem of world-class young innovators to fast-track inclusive ethical AI for the development of growing rural-urban Nigeria.
First and foremost, I want to appreciate OCCAM. We are a regular presenter on the OCCAM Infopoverty World Conference platform, and we've done this through the UN ICT40 project that has been on since 2010. So, we have evolved into an ecosystem where we now see how we can manage young innovators and build this capacity for them to be able to qualitatively impact policies that drive artificial intelligence, particularly in Nigeria, an African country. The various areas I want to look at are that, one, sustainable intensification.
Today, all the speakers have dealt so much in this area, and we're going to see that the AI ecosystem for Nigeria of young innovators is to ensure that we even have the capacity before we begin to talk artificial intelligence at all. Speaking as an innovator myself who has run a software company for over 20 years, we see a gap. We see a gap where the new generation we have today is almost far away from what is happening, and we're trying to see how they can get this early from their tertiary education so that we can give AI, ML-generated AI education to whatever course of study a young student is undergoing while he's still in the university. So that by the time you step out, you will be able to take better advantage of the content of each of these professions and careers and be able to take advantage of the global advancements in artificial intelligence, just as we have heard because of this event today.
So, we have brought AI labs, which are going to look at the various careers, and each of them should be able to innovate in their various contents to build new jobs for the country and of course, influence how artificial intelligence can help solve the problems of algorithmic bias, as well as making the environment socially available and equitably acceptable to everybody. So, we'll look at the multidisciplinary career transformation platform, which is the environment where we are going to nurture all these young people, and of course, emphasize the fast track of inclusive ethical AI for deep and for growing at the end of urban Nigeria. And we have made a lot of records. We've created a lot of records.
If you look at the global recordings of the World Summit Awards, we have Nigeria's innovations from across several sectors, which I may not be able to go into detail, but then we are going to look at all the sectors, all the careers, and ensure that every one of them can make good use and better use. In Nigeria, you have the YORUBA, you have the HAUSA, you have the IGBO, being the key ethnic groups in the country of over 200 million people. So, if they are better aware of artificial intelligence education, irrespective of their cause and backgrounds, they can influence whatever we want to use or do with artificial intelligence for national development. We have also seen in every sector, that this is open government and citizens engagement, health and well-being, learning and education, environment and energy.
Nigerians are all over the place involving products, but then we want to ensure that even the younger ones need to go through the needed education in artificial intelligence so that they can participate qualitatively globally, even in the areas of security. We’ve looked at the dimensions in terms of all the geopolitical zones, and we want to create a markup of 35% engagement to ensure that we can have young people impact using artificial intelligence in diverse areas. Agriculture, financial services, education, and so on. Transportation, energy, public services, environmental protection, manufacturing, and so on. And of course, we want this project at the end of the day to present Nigeria on this advocacy for inclusion of Nigeria in the EWABELT inter-regional development, which we feel we have what it takes. And of course, being able to drive all the things within the country so that Nigeria can also be on that level of EWABELT for development. Thank you, and thank you so much.”
**
The FINAL DECLARATION of the 23rd Infopoverty World Conference is now available! The Plan of Action including a list of projects and proposals that emerged from the discussion will be available soon. STAY TUNED!
Comments