The organizer of the Data Science Nigeria’s workshop on Artificial Intelligence has disclosed plans to unveil a book that simplifies Artificial Intelligence for primary and secondary school pupils.
The book will be unveiled at the annual workshop, scheduled to hold on Tuesday 19 November 2019 at the Oriental Hotel, Victoria Island, Lagos. The event will run in parallel with the Artificial Intelligence Demystified Masterclass for executive and the all-expense-paid Artificial Intelligence bootcamp, where 26 international experts will be flying to Nigeria as tutors and mentors during the same week.
According to Olubayo Adekanmbi, convener of the workshop, the unveiling of the book is in furtherance of its vision to democratise Artificial Intelligence (AI) and position Nigeria as a future global powerhouse in the fourth industrial revolution.
He said the effort is in alignment with DSN’s roadmap to building a community of one million talented artificial intelligence (AI) specialists in Nigeria during the next 10 years, which will position Nigeria as one of the top 10 AI talent destination in the world, with significant GDP multiplier across all industries.
“The book is an effort towards AI knowledge democratization as it simplifies the concept of artificial intelligence in a friendly manner to our young ones, with a view to stimulating their curiosity and driving their interest in learning about AI,” he disclosed.
The book starts with generic introductions to the core concepts including machine learning, deep learning and reinforcement learning, and then introduces step-by-step programming using the Python programming language. My intention is to go beyond the traditional code-first approach and motivate readers by helping them to understand what the knowledge of coding can do particularly in AI as a way to build an application-focused mindset.
The book is driven by a sense of higher purpose to catalyse nationwide capacity building with the skills of the future.
With this book, Nigerian students who want to learn Big Data, Data Science, Machine/Deep Learning and other advanced analytics tools can now access to easy-to-understand simple learning materials with relevant practical exercises.
The book is fully supported by Softcom, and will be distributed free in Nigerian schools.