University of Ghana holds a symposium with Google AI

The University of Ghana in collaboration with Google AI has held a symposium aimed at challenging Africans to know the role of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the continent.

The highly anticipated programme held at the Great Hall, saw several departmental heads of the university as well as personnel from Google AI and students from a number of tertiary institutions convene to deliberate about the way forward of Africa using the latest AI technologies.

AI to enhance businesses in Africa

In a keynote address, the head of Google AI team in Africa, Dr. Moustapha Cisse stated that the use of AI to automate translations will go a long way to enhance the growth of businesses in Africa.

“Using AI to automate translations would make it easier for African nations to communicate & do business, since there are 2,000 languages spoken on the continent.”

Dr. Moustapha Cisse

Dr. Cisse added that there is the need to engage in research work to advance sciences and to use the research to solve actual problems in Ghana and Africa as a whole.

“Our hope is to collaborate with students and universities in Africa to discuss opportunities that can trigger the progress of our continent using the technologies available to us,” Dr. Cisse said.

AI for development

Dr. Ernest Mwebaze from Uganda Technology and Management University (UTAMU) encouraged the students to make machine learning and techniques to learn from data a priority.

“Programming a computer to be clever is harder than programming it to learn to be clever.”

Dr. Mwebaze

Dr. Mwebaze believes that agriculture being one of the biggest sources of income in many African countries is a very perfect problem for AI to solve. With the use of AI enhanced smartphones, very important farm disease data can be collected to address an issue in the shortest possible time.

“Even though there are differences in languages, images is an important way of collecting data in Africa because it is easy to understand and know what to do.”

Dr. Ernest Mwebaze

The role of AI in the lives of Africans

In addressing the role of AI in the lives of Africans, User Experience Expert, Ms. Diana Akrong admitted that almost everything we do nowadays involves the use of AI and that is why it is important to embrace technology.

“Several activities like farming, fishing, surfing the net, taking pictures or videos, amongst others are effectively done by people with the use of AI,” Ms. Akrong said.

Ms. Akrong stressed that the whole world is moving at a pace that makes it a necessity for the African continent to get along with the learning and implementation of advanced technologies.

She opined that Artificial Intelligence, if used appropriately, will enhance several challenges facing the continent in sectors like education, sanitation, economy, employment and the likes.

The user experience expert was however quick to admit that before any problem can be solved, one should be able to understand the problem from the perspective of the developer and the user.

The key takeaway from Ms. Akrong’s presentation is a quote by Kevin Slavin, “You can build software to eat the world or software to feed it and I advise you to take the latter.”

The second part of the symposium was a poster session which saw the final year undergraduate students of University of Ghana showcase their projects to all in attendance.

Almost a year ago, Google announced the first AI center in Accra which happens to be the first on the continent of Africa and they aim to unify students to embrace the idea of problem solving using AI.

Also in attendance were some secondary school students from West Africa High School and Tamale Senior High who expressed satisfaction at the exposure gotten at this year’s AI symposium.

Edward Kyei Frimpong-Mybeeponline