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The National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), on behalf of the Federal Government of Nigeria, has made plans to establish AI developer communities all around the nation.
According to Nairametrics, a Nigerian news outlet, the NITDA Director-General, Mr Kashifu Inuwa, revealed this while meeting with instructors and some NITDA AI Developers Training (NAIDT) participants in Abuja. He believed that the local communities would contribute to determining how technology would develop in the nation.
The National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR), a division of NITDA, and the Google Developers Group (GDG) collaborated to conduct the AI training. According to Inuwa, the programme’s trial phase in Abuja was successful and it will be reproduced in other states.
“The vision is to create a community of developers across the country where people can come, learn, and after that, they can teach others or start their businesses and impact society,” the director general said.
“I believe we can start with three states this year, then strategise on how to extend it to other states; with time, extend it to local government areas. This is driven by my firm belief that in Nigeria, our most valuable asset as a nation is our human capital,” he added.
The NAIDT platform, he continued, could be used to develop homegrown super applications like generative AI and language modelling, which could then be tested using NITDA before being scaled up across the government. It will support the government’s digitalisation plan, he claims.
The National Director of NCAIR, Mr Ya’u Garba, also spoke during the event. He stated that the project, which has been in existence for a year, aims to teach one million developers under the slogan “Learn, Teach, and Earn.” According to Garba, there were three stages of training: Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. – Business Insider Africa.
Online Reporter