Largest Resources for Machine Learning in Africa

giving my 2 cents

Data-science is everywhere maybe even too much. It is an interdisciplinary area that combines knowledge from statistics, computer science, mathematics, and engineering. Many disruptive and innovative technologies are rooted in data-science, and indeed it is believed they raise people’s quality of life while also enhancing the effectiveness of services. For example self-driving cars, fraud detection, and clinical diagnosis. African academic institutions have just recently started to catch up. In this article I talk about the main initiative so far AIMS/AMMI and DeepLearning Indaba, where I am also involved.

AIMS and AMMI

It was the February/March of 2012, the first time I went to the Ghanaian center of the African Institute for Mathematical Science (AIMS) to teach an introductory course on machine learning. At that time nobody, especially in Sub-Saharan countries, knew what machine learning was. The name sounded quirky to students, so I changed it into “pattern recognition”, as the main text we were using was C. Bishop “Pattern recognition and machine learning”. Even calling it “pattern recognition” sometimes was not so friendly, so I had to explain literally what it means, as I did in the previous paragraph. The first generation of students found interesting but still weird. Slowly, slowly around the world this “data science” fad managed to reach the world. So, finally I could call the course “introduction to machine learning”. Later on, everyone wanted to improve his/her skills on machine learning. In September 2018 AIMS even created with the support of google a further master program specifically focused on artificial intelligence and not math: the African Masters of Machine Intelligence (AMMI). AMMI’s mission is to provide the greatest AI education to Africa and to help create a vibrant community of AI professionals that are dedicated to improving our society. The course has high profile lecturers as Yann LeCun and Joshua Bengio. I kept teaching the main course at AIMS Ghana. During the years, I also had the opportunity to supervise several Master thesis and projects at the center, some of which culminated even into publications. For example Andry and Rayan did an interesting work on brain connectivity:

In order to position Africa on the international scientific arena, AIMS launched the Next Einstein Forum and Quantum Leap Africa, two crucial programs. More specifically Quantum Leap Africa is focused on the use of quantum technologies or big data through clouds. All courses have practical lectures in Python or R, and they are planned problem-based to provice the most modern and progressive learning experience.

if you are a gifted African. Please consider to apply to the program. It is not just a learning experience. You will gain contacts which you can use to further progress your career or to do projects in your own country.

DatascienceAfrica and Deep Learning Indaba

AIMS is focused on finding the Next Einstein and entire Master program to acquire a wide range of skills. DatascienceAfrica and Indaba instead aim at having high quality conferences disseminating high quality science from Africa. The programs also offer fellowships and other resources to do research in this context. Indeed, the goal is to have The African machine learning community meeting annually strengthening African machine learning.

In 2022, the conference DeepLearning Indaba takes place in Tunisi: Indaba — Deep Learning Indaba 2022 . The event is free for students and travel and accommodation grants are offered within the possibility of their funding. I highly recommend it to grow the scientific community in Africa.

I have been involved in the mentorship program. More specifically, I have calls with candidates from Africa giving tips on how to applying for undergraduate or postgraduate studies, plan a career, prepare a CV.

Interestingly, one of my former students (Khadija Iddrisu) presented at the conference the work of her thesis at AIMS as a paper/poster to Indaba 2022, presented at the Weekly supervised computer vision workshop. I found this very interesting as crossing to worlds. If you cannot be in Tunisi, I share here the poster:

Moreover, there are several local chapters of Indaba each with local communities and local conferences called IndabaX. As the IndabaX Ghana conference.

ZINDI

Another popular initiative, this time where I am not involved at all, it is ZINDI.

Zindi is a collection of courses, and challenge focused on machine learning to solve issues in Africa. It is the first data science competition platform in Africa. More importantly

it is a way to connect gifted people to companies, as you can also find job offers.

Summarizing, data science and machine learning are blooming in Africa as well. If you want to obtain a full degree and connect further with academia consider applying to AIMS, if you want share your research participate to Indaba conferences, to get more connected to companies once you have enough skills take a look at Zindi. If you have ideas related to neuroimaging, feel free to reach out.