All is now set for the two-day InnovateAI Conference Lagos 2024 opening February 24 at the Landmark Event Centre in Victoria Island in Lagos, according to AI in Nigeria, organisers of the event.
AI in Nigeria said that the event, themed “Adapting AI For Nigeria: Crafting Intelligent Solutions For Our Unique Landscape” and set to hold on February 23 and 24, 2024, promises to be a convergence of tech enthusiats with a conference and hackathon grand finale.
The event boasts an impressive lineup of 16 speakers and panelists, including Rodger Werhoven, Independent Creative Director, Open AI; Abubakar Suleiman, MD/CEO Sterling Bank; Kachifu Abdullahi, DG, National Information Technology Development Agency; and Tony Emoekpere, President, Association of Telecommunication Companies of Nigeria (ATCON), among others, comprising of industry thought leaders, regulators, investors and tech enthusiasts within Nigeria’s ecosystem.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionised industries globally, with key applications in Natural Language Processing (NLP), robotics, healthcare, gaming, financial services, and autonomous vehicles. And its application is becoming key to the growth companies such as Tesla, Google, Microsoft, among others. Despite its widespread acceptance in certain regions, including the US, Europe, and parts of Asia, AI is yet to achieve significant breakthroughs in many parts of Africa, including Nigeria.
According to Adeoye, “the AI industry is going to explode, 30% is a safe estimation but it may even go beyond that. I see a lot of opportunities in different industries.” He also revealed AI in Nigeria’s plans to release the AI landscape report researched by the team.
Organisers: InnovateAI Conference Lagos 2024 to Unlock Nigeria’s AI Opportunities
The state of AI in Nigeria remains in its infancy, lacking proper initiatives. However, there has been signs of progress as the government has shown interest in its development. The Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC) released a study addressing the ethical and societal impact of Artificial Intelligence, noting that “as a Society, we now live in the age of big data, an age in which we have the capacity to collect huge sums of information too cumbersome for any human being to process, but which fall within the capabilities of AI”
According to organisers, InnovateAI Lagos 2024 aims to achieve several objectives that include: to discover cutting-edge AI startups and technologies poised to revolutionize Nigeria’s business landscape, engage in panel discussions, research presentations, and a thrilling AI hackathon. It also aims to provide a platform to test AI skills, creativity, problem-solving abilities, and offer a cultural immersion experience, exploring Lagos state.
In an exclusive interview with Technology Times, Dotun Adeoye, Co-Founder, AI in Nigeria articulated the vision: “AI will be adapted and localized to solve challenges peculiar to Nigeria.” He emphasized key challenges such as data availability and quality, talent and education, local context, regulatory and ethical frameworks, AI literacy, and public perception.
“The Nigerian landscape”, Adeoye said, “is just evolving in terms of artificial intelligence. One of the things we’re working to do is, to work with regulators to craft relevant and adequate regulation that is not overbearing and is relevant to our landscape.”
He added, “we must ensure that we have a localized regulation that is not just a copy and paste regulation, we need to localize it so that it serves the purpose of our peculiar situation.”
He further highlighted the potential for AI to solve peculiar challenges such as unemployment, education and security. He enthused, “AI is a general purpose technology that can be adapted and used for good, but it has to be done ethically, and the regulators also need to be able to adapt a framework that would work well for the Nigerian landscape.”
The conference seeks to address these challenges by collaborating with existing companies and stakeholders, fostering knowledge sharing, and advocating for ethical AI adoption.
Ehia Erhaboh, another co-convener, echoed this sentiment, emphasizing AI’s potential to address Nigeria’s unique challenges. He remarked, “We aim to localise AI advancement for Nigeria, ensure this 4th industrial revolution and general purpose technology for local challenges. InnovateAI Lagos 2024 will showcase how AI can effectively address our unique challenges.”
The AI market in Nigeria is experiencing rapid growth, with a projected compound annual growth rate of over 30% in the next five years. This growth is attributed to increasing adoption across sectors such as healthcare, agriculture, finance, and education.
According to Adeoye, “the AI industry is going to explode, 30% is a safe estimation but it may even go beyond that. I see a lot of opportunities in different industries.” He also revealed AI in Nigeria’s plans to release the AI landscape report researched by the team.
With learning sessions, symposia, and Q&A sessions from the panelists, InnovateAI Lagos 2024 is poised to be the largest AI event in Nigeria, heralding a new era of technological advancement and problem-solving prowess, according to organisers.
