Within the early 2000s, Olumide Balogun was writing code on paper as a third-year pupil at Obafemi Awolowo College in Osun State, Nigeria. He was taught Fortran 70, a coding language the remainder of the world had lengthy moved previous. It wasn’t till he bought his elder sister’s laptop computer in his fourth 12 months {that a} world of prospects opened as much as him.
“It was a laptop computer that wanted 10 hours to cost for 2 hours of uptime, however these have been very cherished hours,” he advised journalists at Google’s Lagos workplace on Tuesday. Right now, Balogun is Google’s director for West Africa, a good distance from the scholar copying syntax right into a pocket book, and he’s decided that the following wave of Nigerian tech expertise won’t be held again by outdated information in an age the place synthetic intelligence (AI) is redrawing each boundary.
It’s a part of why Google, by means of its philanthropic arm Google.org, is committing ₦3 billion ($2.08 million) to 5 Nigerian organisations to speed up superior AI skilling, push innovation, and strengthen digital security over the following three years.
This initiative takes a distinct route from Google’s ordinary coaching programme, corresponding to its 2023 expertise dash programme that skilled 20,991 contributors, together with 5,217 ladies in AI & tech. Quite than working programmes outdoors formal schooling, the corporate is now going immediately into Nigeria’s greater establishments, concentrating on the individuals who form information: lecturers and their educating assistants.
In its draft Nationwide AI Technique, the Nigerian authorities mentioned it desires to scale back unemployment by 5 proportion factors by equipping no less than 70% of Nigeria’s younger workforce (aged 16-35) with AI expertise and information.
In 2024, GSMA, the worldwide physique for telcos, reported that the majority Nigerian universities couldn’t rent professors with actual AI experience, worsening a expertise hole in a subject projected so as to add $2.9 trillion to Africa’s GDP by 2030.
“In Kenya and Nigeria, the shortage of professors with strong AI experience and {qualifications} seems to be a major problem. Tutorial establishments usually lack the monetary sources to recruit them, impacting the standard of programs provided,” GSMA mentioned.
Balogun says Google’s funding is supposed to shut this hole.
“For essentially the most half, we have now been doing quite a lot of skilling initiatives outdoors of structured schooling environments. And we proceed to try this,” he mentioned. “With this new grant and funding, we’re very centered on shifting into structured environments to drive the deep studying and curriculum evolution that’s required there. So it isn’t a alternative. It’s an evolution of the skilling investments that we have now made through the years.”
To tug this off, the funding will likely be unfold throughout 5 non-governmental organisations: FATE Basis, in collaboration with the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), will embed a sophisticated AI curriculum immediately into universities.
The African Expertise Discussion board (ATF) will run an innovation problem to assist builders transfer from studying to constructing real-world merchandise. Junior Achievement (JA) Africa will scale its web curriculum for younger individuals, and CyberSafe Basis will strengthen cybersecurity capability for public establishments.
In keeping with Adenike Adeyemi, govt director at FATE Basis, curriculum reform and institutional capability are central to unlocking Nigeria’s financial potential. To attain this, FATE and AIMS are collaborating with the College Faculty London to adapt the Google DeepMind Analysis Basis curriculum to be used in Nigerian universities and polytechnics.
“As soon as the curriculum is prepared, the following stage is to offer the lecturers and their educating assistants the information and the capability, not simply to know, however to have the ability to educate it,” she mentioned.
As a result of lecturers are pivotal to this transformation, the train-the-trainer programme led by AIMS will likely be rigorous. Contributors will bear deep coaching, educate again the content material, and full a capstone analysis challenge tied to their course, establishment, and native context. Solely lecturers in STEM fields qualify.
The challenge goals to assist no less than 10 greater establishments, practice 50 lecturers, 50 educating assistants, and attain over 11,000 college students in two to a few years. Chosen universities will even obtain small grants.
“That is how it will likely be cascaded,” Adeyemi defined. “Curriculum growth, capsule analysis on the finish, wrap-around assist, together with mentoring, funding, technical help for the establishments which can be chosen, and likewise to the lecturers and their educating assistants, after which the scholars who’re then skilled.”
Chosen universities should present seriousness and have a base infrastructure to assist the challenge.
In 2024, Google gave ₦2.8 billion ($1.94 million) to Information Science Nigeria to assist the federal government’s AI-driven schooling push, concentrating on 25,000 academics who would practice 125,000 secondary faculty college students.
With a median age of 18, Nigeria is putting its bets the place it issues most: its younger individuals. And because the international AI race accelerates, the race to improve Nigeria’s information base, from outdated to frontier studying, has begun.
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