Refractory Uganda, a Tech-skilling-academy in collaboration with the Deutsche Gesellschaft fÅNur Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ), has launched the Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) skills program.
The program that aims to offer software engineering skills to 118 learners, was launched at the Clarke International University on Friday.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a key technology driving the global and national digital revolution, which offers a range of new opportunities to break down existing barriers to human development and social inclusion and help achieve Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).
As proposed by the Uganda National Development Plan III, the Ministry of ICT and National Guidance patterned with GIZ through the “Fair Forward” project to deliver AI-Skilling-Programm to contribute to the development and re-skilling of Ugandan Workforce in AI, machine learning and data science.
This six-month training follows a project-based, instructed class, coupled with self-learning to ground learners in fundamental concepts of artificial intelligence and advanced machine learning. Learners have an opportunity to use data sets from familiar work environments to validate the knowledge and skills they learn.
The course provides for elective specializations such as majors in NLP and Earth Observation and Geomatics. The program had over 2300 applicants but the number was scaled down to 118 people, most of whom are part of the industry and will focus on advancing the data science and industrial revolution technology.
According to Michael Niyitegeka – program Director at Refractory, they received funding to implement this program. “Part of the funding is covering 50 full scholarships to carefully selected and suitably qualified Ugandans from the private, public and the development sectors in Uganda while 50% of the scholarships have been awarded to female candidates on the program.”
Among other objectives of the program is to provide learners with actionable knowledge and understanding of AI and data science applications in the local contexts, provide knowledge in big data and analytics, deploy AI & ML solutions to real world challenges, and enable data-driven decision-making.
Eligibility
Niyitegeka said the eligibility for this particular program was that one ought to have had some basic software engineering that you can ably understand a few things about the program.
Additionally, knowledgeable about numbers because the program deals with data and statistics and for this particular cohort, the program deals with people already in the World of work because it aims to see if the things taught can easily be applied at work.
Muhammed Kamal, a scholar enrolling in the six-month-program, aims to build a network and getting skilled to manage fraud and Cybercrimes, while Amanda Shirley hopes to acquire skills and apply them in the real industry by the end of the training in April 2024.
