Oluchi Chibuzor
FATE Foundation, in collaboration with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), is set to empower educators, Nigerian youths, across 10 Universities through a Google.org $1.1m Africa AI Upskilling Programme.
The multi-country initiative according to the FATE is aimed at building a sustainable and scalable ecosystem for advanced AI education in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa.
Speaking at the launch of the programme in Nigeria, recently at University of Lagos, Executive Director, FATE Foundation, Ayomide Akindolie-Igwe, said as part of the programme lecturers and teaching assistants and penultimate and final-year STEM students are expected to benefit.
According to her, “The coming months, we will work closely with our partner Higher Educational Institutions’ (HEIs) to deepen AI knowledge, strengthen institutional capacity, and equip educators with practical skills for lasting impact. Our goal is to train more than 30,000 students in advanced AI and ultimately embed the advanced AI curriculum into the mainstream programmes of our partner HEIs, ensuring that it or an updated version continues to be taught to STEM students across Africa long after this cohort.”
On her side, the Sub-saharan Africa Program Manager, Google.org, Matita Arize, said that their focus on AI upscaling is centred around equality globally.
“At Google.org, our priority focus around AI upskilling centers on a simple yet profound premise: Technology should be a great equalizer, not a wedge that deepens global inequality. We believe that the transformative power of AI must be accessible to everyone, everywhere, and most importantly, that those closest to the world’s challenges must be equipped to build the solutions,” she said.
Speaking, the Programme Director, 3MTT, Francis Sani, advised participants to seek localised solutions that will solve national problems.
“As we implement this programme, let us apply AI to solve our national problems across all sectors in our country. This programme should expand the pool of our AI professionals we have in the country,” he said.