Around August 28, 2023, the Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy led by Dr. Bosun Tijani, released some teasers regarding the National Artificial Intelligence Strategy (NAIS).
According to the Ministry:
“Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a multi-purpose technology transforming production and service delivery, with the potential to significantly impact economic growth and social progress. Recent research shows that AI could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, with $3 trillion from increased productivity and $9.1 trillion from new products and services (PwC, 2018)”.
Also, the International Finance Corporation projects that the strategic adoption of AI could add up $234 billion to Africa’s GDP by 2030.
Nigeria in this loop is considered to have a fast-growing technology start-up ecosystem (having attracted 25% of the $1.3 billion funding to African tech start-ups in 2021) and with proactive leadership, is well-positioned to leverage AI for economic diversification and inclusive growth.
As an innovation leader on the African continent, Nigeria needs to develop a national strategy to harness the power of AI for sustainable development.
However, along with the opportunities, AI governance also poses some complex socio-technical challenges. As algorithms are deployed in high-stake domains like healthcare, finance, and security, concerns are emerging around ethics, bias, transparency, job automation and privacy.
Both policy makers and researchers are of a consensus that a human-centered approach is essential to ensure AI systems are fair and accountable to all, across gender, ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
A National AI Strategy for Nigeria to responsibly steer the AI revolution towards achieving national goals around job creation, social inclusion, and sustainable development becomes imperative. With collaborative leadership, Nigeria seeks to pioneer ethical and inclusive AI innovation that improves welfare and expands opportunities for all its citizens.
Today, the Minister leads more than 120 delegates to a national AI workshop to discuss the country’s strategy towards leveraging AI for development.
In a post on his X handle, the Minister wrote:
“The quality of talent of Nigerian descent available in the field of Artificial Intelligence is quite inspiring and I was pleased to welcome our 120+ delegates coming from within and outside Nigeria yesterday as we kick off our National Artificial Intelligence Strategy Workshop. #NAIS #NigerianExcellence
“Among the roster of truly exceptional delegates who have assembled in Abuja today, we have folks with the following impressive profiles.
- Built an ICT platform to support service delivery to over 30 million unique customers
- Built the world’s first intelligent gaming robot
- A Winner of the Data Centre Personality of the Year – 2022 and Data Centre CTO of the Year by 6th Africa Digital Economy
- The Owner of 15 patents, who has authored 65 publications, and has been involved in the implementation of hundreds of innovative digital solutions across Africa, Asia, and the USA
- A Bill and Melinda Gates Grand Challenge Winner for using AI to solve a specific global problem
- Led the design of a FAIR digital data health infrastructure in Africa for COVID‐19 reporting and research
- An Assistant Professor at Stanford University and President of the Global Black in AI organization
- An expert endorsed as a ‘Global Exceptional Talent’ by The Royal Society and has published more than 95 research papers and more than 2200 citations in reputable journals and conference proceedings
- A Senior Research Fellow with Wits University, Atlantic Senior Fellow on Socio-Economic Equity at the London School of Economics, Former Head of Research at the South African Human Rights Commission and former Clinical Advocacy Fellow at Harvard Law School
- A Professor of Computer Science, with over 144 academic publications in information systems, databases, AI and information security
- A Member of the UNDP AI4Dev Reference Group and Lead Facilitator in Robot development and automation & member of the robotics research group at the University of Manchester”.
He added that the Government of President Bola Tinubu is excited about the journey the nation is starting today “and I want to thank all our partners for their support!”
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