NITDA Trains 1,227 Youths In AI Developing

No fewer than 1,227 Nigerian youths were trained in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) recently. The beneficiaries in 10 Cohorts went through a series of coaching and lectures to develop programming skills in Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning.

The training, which has just concluded, was organised by NITDA through its subsidiary, National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) in conjunction with Google Developers Group (GDG). Speaking, the Director-General of NITDA, Mr. Kashifu Inuwa, said the Federal Government planned to build Artificial Intelligence (AI) developers’ communities across the country.

He said this while receiving instructors and some beneficiaries of NITDA AI Developers Training (NAIDT) in Abuja. According to him, the communities would help shape the future of technology in the country. Inuwa said the programme, being the pilot phase in Abuja, had achieved its purpose and would be replicated in other states.

Highlighting the government’s plans for AI developers in Nigeria, Kashifu said: “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.

“I believe we can start with three states this year, then strategize 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 as- set as a nation is our human capital.”

He added that the NAIDT platform could be used to create indigenous super applications like generative AI and language modeling, then a Proof-of-Concept (POC) could be done with NITDA and then escalated government-wide.

According to him, it will encourage the government’s digitization agenda. Also speaking, the National Director of NCAIR, Mr Ya’u Garba, said the initiative which was one year old was aimed at training one million developers under the theme: “Learn, Teach, and Earn.” Garba revealed that the training consisted of three levels which included Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced.