Ephraim Mwereza took home first prize for his AI innovation helping assess autism during the Africa AI Innovation Summit organised on the side-lines of the African Development Bank Annual Meeting. Second prize went to a team developing a platform that bridges the communication gap between caregivers and individuals with autism.
The students had been previously trained by Huawei and used Huawei Cloud to develop their solutions.
The award ceremony was the culmination of a 3 month hackathon organized by Kenya National Innovation Agency, Huawei, UNESCO, Assistive Technologies for Development and Kenya Institute of Special Education. The students demonstrated their solutions at the Africa AI Innovation Summit, organized by the same partners, that sought to catalyze the African Ecosystem to develop African AI Solutions to solve African problems.
At the Summit, over 20 speakers discussed issues related to infrastructure, data, skills, ethics and financing necessary for AI to thrive, and for Africa to take advantage of it. John Kiarie, MP, and Chair of the Committee on CII at National Assembly summed up one of the key themes saying: “At each instance in history, when Africa comes to the crossroads, the question is asked, should Africa look to borrow from the East or look to learn and benefit from the West? And I am offering,
that at this instance, with the fourth Industrial Revolution, it is not a time for Africa to look East or West, it is a time for Africa to look within. With all resources availed to Africa, with a bulging and enthusiastic youthful, educated and relatively technologically survey population, Africa has everything to ensure that Africa does not sleep through this fourth Industrial Revolution.”
Adam Lane, Huawei’s Director for Government Affairs congratulated the students whilst emphasizing the importance of the conversations that happened during the Summit. He affirmed Huawei’s desire to continue supporting training students and providing technical and cloud resources to support AI in Kenya. He also emphasized Huawei’s commitment to partnerships, noting how the hackathon and the Summit were one result of such.
The Summit was attended by 200 people, with the Director for Kenya Institute of Special Education, Dr Norman Kiogora, CEO of Kenya National Innovation Agency, Dr Tonny Omwansa, and Secretary for ICT Security & Audit at the Ministry of Information, Communications and Digital Economy joining the proceedings, commending KenIA, Huawei, UNESCO, AT4D, and KISE for their extraordinary work.
Some of the key comments at the Summit included:
· David Lemaiyan, Head of Qubit at Qhala: “We must get the right things first and the first things right.”
· Dr Tomisin Fashina, the CIO of African Development Bank: “We must educate ourselves out of under development…… it all starts with education”.
· Linet Kwamboka, Senior Manager, Data4Now, Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data: “For us to effectively compete in the AI space, we must invest in the right skills and people. We need our people to have the right skills for us to be represented in the right places”.
