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Developing Artificial Intelligence Proficeincy Throughout Africa: Who We Aspire to Be

Oladapo Kayode

Ag. Director, ICT / Ag. HOD, Computer Science Deaprtment

McPherson University

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Developing AI Proficiency Throughout Africa: Who We Aspire to Be

Presentation Outline

  • Introduction
  • Who truly owns Africa's AI future?
  • Prevention of Digital Colonialism when AI is trained on non-Africa data.
  • Building Competitive AI talent for proficiency.

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Developing AI Proficiency Throughout Africa: Who We Aspire to Be

  • How China is dominating AI - Forbe Report (2018)

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  • AI Power Shift: How China is overtaking the US in 2025 (Pandey, 2025)

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  • While AI promises significant economic boosts, it also has the risk of increasing inequality and make less developed countries not at the forefront thus creating digital dependence.

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Developing AI Proficiency Throughout Africa: Who We Aspire to Be

Who truly owns Africa's AI future?

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Prioritize policies and structures that foster local AI ideas rather than relying on large multinational firms

Government and Policymakers

regulation of technology giants with high AI governance to ensure that our data is not exploited for external economic boost.

Local Data Control, by ensuring Africa control their own data, by keeping it, ensuring it serves the local needs instead of being used and monetized by foreign firms

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Developing AI Proficiency Throughout Africa: Who We Aspire to Be

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Prevention of Digital Colonialism

01

Investment (Computing, Internet, Data Centers)

02

Local Artificial Models Tailored to Local Needs

03

Reduce continued extraction of African user data

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Developing AI Proficiency Throughout Africa: Who We Aspire to Be

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Building Competitive AI Talents

For Proficiency

Building

Competitive AI

Talents

02

03

01

building competitive AI talents by addressing the STEM Education

building local proficiency in localized AI solutions.

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nurturing an AI ecosystem

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Developing AI Proficiency Throughout Africa: Who We Aspire to Be

  • 3MTT Nigeria program that is shaping the future of Nigeria’s digital workforce,
  • Deep Learning Indaba that is strengthening African Machine Learning,
  • Data Science Africa that is harnessing Data Science for Africa’s socioeconomic development and
  • Python Africa (PyCon Africa) that is a pan-African meeting of the Python programming community.

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Our Aspiration So Far

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Developing AI Proficiency Throughout Africa: Who We Aspire to Be

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