Data Science Nigeria (DSN) is now set to launch an AI (Artificial Intelligence) hub and a dedicated data science community centre in University of Lagos, Lagos State. The Hub will officially be launched on Friday, the 8th of June, at 11 a.m. on the university campus with the Vice Chancellor, Professor Oluwatoyin Temitayo Ogundipe and DSN’s advisor, Dr Uyi Stewart – Chief Data Scientist, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Seattle, USA.
Data Science Nigeria is a non-profit initiative with a vision to accelerate Nigeria’s development through a solution-oriented application of machine learning in solving social/ business problems and to galvanize data science knowledge revolution.
This will push Nigeria to become the outsourcing hub for international Data Science/Advanced Analytics/Big Data projects, with an opportunity to access at least 1% share of the global big data and analytics market, valued at $150b in 2017 ($203b in 2020).
The opening exercise is expected to be the first phase to fulfiling one of the 7 cardinal goals of the group for the year: a town & gown Research-driven innovation Hub to support PhD/MSc research works with a focus on solving social/business problems.
This will use a tripartite model that brings together rigorous academic research, industry R&D support and incubation support.
The Hub will be the community centre for data science enthusiasts and experts to fraternize, learn, share ideas and participate in local and international projects. DSN also plans to use the Hub for face-to-face masterclasses, industry meet-ups, and dial-in conferences with its over 100+ mentors from across the globe. Data science practitioners can also participate in many industry data projects as interns, freelancers or experts at the Hub.
The hub as designed can take 50 participants (seating arrangement without table) and 30-36 (seating arrangement with table). It will serve for data science enthusiasts and experts to fraternize, learn, share ideas and run projects and the hub features modern data collection tools including biometric readers, an AWS AI DeepLens Camera, Google Clips, Intel Movidius Neural Stick, GPS tracking devices, Bionic Nature Observing Device, Internet-of-Things suite and many others.
