The Africa Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence Challenge (Africa IoT & AI Challenge) officially kicked off its local activities in Nigeria on Saturday 10th of July, 2021.
The programme is aimed at building the capacity of qualified and young calibres in the technology field to accelerate the process of digital transformation and serve the goal of digitally uniting Africa.
The challenge covers a number of countries in Africa and the Middle East including Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Tunisia, Uganda, Nigeria, Ghana, Rwanda, and South Africa.
The opening ceremony of the event was held virtually in the presence of Dr. Evans Woherem, Chairman of Digital Africa – the local challenge organiser for Nigeria; Mr. Mohamed Aboud, Chair of Africa IoT & AI Challenge; Mr. Muhammad Sameh, Vice President for Innovations and Business Growth at Benya Group, the official sponsor of the challenge across Africa; and Mr. Amr Karim, Managing Director of WAKANDAI Ventures – the founding organising partner of the challenge.
Also in attendance was Mallam Inuwa Kashifu Abdullahi, the Director-General of the National Information Technology Development Agency, who was represented by Dr. Abdullahi Usman.
Organisers of the programme said in a statement made available to DigitalTimesNG that Africa IoT & AI Challenge provides all the technical and logistical support to the participating youth starting from equipping them with advanced technical information in the fields of Internet of Things and Artificial Intelligence to supporting innovative projects and startups to be ready for investment.
This they said is with a vision to developing an environment of innovation and entrepreneurship in Africa.
The programme also established the ‘IoT & AI Knowledge Hub,’ a knowledge complex that provides online workshops, lectures and online learning resources for the IoT & AI community in Africa.
“Through the hub, the participants learn from the success stories of African engineers and developers working in giant technology companies and follow their steps to grow in their own careers.
“Africa IoT & AI Challenge applies an innovative regional capacity building and a pre-incubation programme model, which makes the challenge not just a competition but a digital transformation movement.
“The challenge goes through two stages, where participants compete on the local level, followed by regional finals through which winners from each country meet. The regional finals are held annually as part of the activities of the IEEE Global Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things (IEEE GCAIoT),” the organisers said in the statement.
With the support of different regional partners, the challenge represents a model of orchestrated efforts starting from the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) as the challenge owner, in partnership with the organizing partners WAKANDAI Ventures, Global Innovation and Entrepreneurship Company (GIE) and Ideaspace.
DigitalTimesNG learnt that while this successful programme received the consideration of prominent business entities including Benya Group, the leading digital solutions and ICT infrastructure provider in Egypt and the MEA region, FinTech pioneer, Banque Misr, the challenge also joins forces with a number of academic partners and universities in each country.
Nigeria IoT & AI Challenge is supported and organized by Digital Africa, putting its extensive experience in the technology management and support field to help the Nigerian youth lead the next steps in Nigeria’s future.
The Nigeria IoT & AI Challenge capitalises on its partners’ expertise and is being organised in Nigeria under Dr. Isa Ali Ibrahim Pantami, Nigeria’s Honourable Minister for Communication and Digital Economy.
Launched in May this year, the challenge comes in line with the global direction towards the exploitation of technology in various spheres of life, as the technologies of the Fourth Generation Industrial Revolution have transformed societies over the past 30 years; creating new opportunities to move towards sustainable economic growth and achieving the goal of a united Digital Africa.
