Invest in Africa's future: Send Students to Indaba
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This group of Sub-Saharan African bachelor students from different engineering and computer science backgrounds are already determined to pursue careers in a variety of Artificial Intelligence related fields.
They have recently been accepted to the third version of The Deep Learning Indaba, a summer school in Nairobi, which features top scholars from all around the world and is dedicated to supply dense theoretical and practical knowledge on the topic of deep learning. The significance of this program stems from its commitment towards facilitating and furthering the development of Artificial Intelligence research, practice, and market in the continent.
Unfortunately, the student's impoverished country lacks access to decent theoretical and practical knowledge and proper mentorship when it comes to advanced topics like deep learning. So regardless of the students distinguished academic achievements, they are set back by their country's ability to provide them with the resources they need to succeed. Especially now that their country suffers from political and social instability, the students have lost the little resources they had; some lost access to their university for two years as the university has temporarily, and the rest will have to complete their remaining academic year from home. Due to the subsequent events in the last three months, the university–especially the libraries and labs–took significant physical damage after being raided by armed forces; therefore, further limiting these exceptional students resources.
The Deep Learning Indaba provides the students opportunities they would not have otherwise gained access to. Senior students from their university who were fortunate enough to attend the past two versions have made splendid breakthroughs in their careers. Not only have they proved the capabilities of African students who generally have far less resources than the majority of the world, they also brought the Indaba awards home. After returning home victorious, the seniors organized a number of workshops and sessions to pass forward the valuable information they received by hosting a local version of the Deep Learning Indaba, the IndabaX, that featured top international academics and valuable theoretical and practical content.
The projects that this group of students are working on this year are innovative in nature and incorporate cutting edge technologies, which need mentoring that can only be obtained at the Indaba.
Mechanical engineers, Mohamed Abdulgafar and Rami Mohamed, plan to design a control strategy for a prosthetic hand that will overcome the difficulties in the interface between the human and the robotic limb. This will produce an optimal controller that's robust for most prosthetic users using an Artificial Intelligence technique known as Deep Reinforcement Learning. Deep Reinforcement Learning is also used by Mohamed Nagdi and Mohamed Yahia as they work on a model to control a robotic arm that will grasp and move objects alongside other dexterous manipulation tasks to interact with objects.
Using technology to overcome challenges facing the environment and developers is an area of concern for the some students, so Moayad Hassan is introducing a more distributed, clean, financially feasible method of providing electricity to consumers by creating a reinforcement-learning trading algorithm that can control production and distribution of power produced locally in rural areas using renewable sources. Whereas Israa Mohamed and Mayada Ahmed are working on a system to control water flow on a field, harvest sesame seeds, pesticide control, cleaning of the field, and overall control of the crop lifecycle using different technologies including computer vision and neural networks.
Eltayeb Khalid, a senior who attended last year’s Indaba, spoke on the event and how it shaped his career. Here is what Khalid had to say on the event,
“Attending the Deep Learning Indaba last year was a truly transformative experience. At the time I was an undergraduate engineering finalist interested in AI and the Indaba was my first exposure to the global AI community. I had a chance to meet and make friends with people in the field from all around the globe. I got the chance to have conversations with many AI experts, through these interactions I got to know more about how cutting-edge research is carried out. I also got a chance to present work I had done as part of my final year project as a poster. Through this presentation I got a lot of constructive feedback both on the technical aspect of the work as well as on how to present scientific research.
As someone who went on to attend NeurIPS 2018, one of the biggest conferences in the field of machine learning, I can say the community at Indaba is one of a kind. The event fosters a lot of interaction between participants with many social events throughout the event, long practical lab sessions that encourage discussion, and a manageable number of attendees. After attending the event, one can truly say that they have made lasting connections with at least a few people, as opposed to many other events where one only typically meets the same person only once or twice. These connections have had a profound impact on my career with me receiving an offer for an internship from one them.
I am currently working on my masters thesis while working with a pair of researchers at a lab doing world-leading research. The connections with these researchers was made through a mutual friend I got the privilege of meeting at Indaba. Indaba was an amazing, life-changing experience that I would recommend to anyone interested in machine learning, especially those trying to start a career."
I would like to thank MTN for paying 6,000USD of the initial 20,238 goal: what remains 14,238 USD needed for tickets, visa fees, accommodation and pocket money (food, transport and pocket money). We need your help to take these brilliant students to Indaba!
Here is the link for the invitation letters of the participants to the Indaba.
Feel free to check them for more details.
They have recently been accepted to the third version of The Deep Learning Indaba, a summer school in Nairobi, which features top scholars from all around the world and is dedicated to supply dense theoretical and practical knowledge on the topic of deep learning. The significance of this program stems from its commitment towards facilitating and furthering the development of Artificial Intelligence research, practice, and market in the continent.
Unfortunately, the student's impoverished country lacks access to decent theoretical and practical knowledge and proper mentorship when it comes to advanced topics like deep learning. So regardless of the students distinguished academic achievements, they are set back by their country's ability to provide them with the resources they need to succeed. Especially now that their country suffers from political and social instability, the students have lost the little resources they had; some lost access to their university for two years as the university has temporarily, and the rest will have to complete their remaining academic year from home. Due to the subsequent events in the last three months, the university–especially the libraries and labs–took significant physical damage after being raided by armed forces; therefore, further limiting these exceptional students resources.
The Deep Learning Indaba provides the students opportunities they would not have otherwise gained access to. Senior students from their university who were fortunate enough to attend the past two versions have made splendid breakthroughs in their careers. Not only have they proved the capabilities of African students who generally have far less resources than the majority of the world, they also brought the Indaba awards home. After returning home victorious, the seniors organized a number of workshops and sessions to pass forward the valuable information they received by hosting a local version of the Deep Learning Indaba, the IndabaX, that featured top international academics and valuable theoretical and practical content.
The projects that this group of students are working on this year are innovative in nature and incorporate cutting edge technologies, which need mentoring that can only be obtained at the Indaba.
Mechanical engineers, Mohamed Abdulgafar and Rami Mohamed, plan to design a control strategy for a prosthetic hand that will overcome the difficulties in the interface between the human and the robotic limb. This will produce an optimal controller that's robust for most prosthetic users using an Artificial Intelligence technique known as Deep Reinforcement Learning. Deep Reinforcement Learning is also used by Mohamed Nagdi and Mohamed Yahia as they work on a model to control a robotic arm that will grasp and move objects alongside other dexterous manipulation tasks to interact with objects.
Using technology to overcome challenges facing the environment and developers is an area of concern for the some students, so Moayad Hassan is introducing a more distributed, clean, financially feasible method of providing electricity to consumers by creating a reinforcement-learning trading algorithm that can control production and distribution of power produced locally in rural areas using renewable sources. Whereas Israa Mohamed and Mayada Ahmed are working on a system to control water flow on a field, harvest sesame seeds, pesticide control, cleaning of the field, and overall control of the crop lifecycle using different technologies including computer vision and neural networks.
Eltayeb Khalid, a senior who attended last year’s Indaba, spoke on the event and how it shaped his career. Here is what Khalid had to say on the event,
“Attending the Deep Learning Indaba last year was a truly transformative experience. At the time I was an undergraduate engineering finalist interested in AI and the Indaba was my first exposure to the global AI community. I had a chance to meet and make friends with people in the field from all around the globe. I got the chance to have conversations with many AI experts, through these interactions I got to know more about how cutting-edge research is carried out. I also got a chance to present work I had done as part of my final year project as a poster. Through this presentation I got a lot of constructive feedback both on the technical aspect of the work as well as on how to present scientific research.
As someone who went on to attend NeurIPS 2018, one of the biggest conferences in the field of machine learning, I can say the community at Indaba is one of a kind. The event fosters a lot of interaction between participants with many social events throughout the event, long practical lab sessions that encourage discussion, and a manageable number of attendees. After attending the event, one can truly say that they have made lasting connections with at least a few people, as opposed to many other events where one only typically meets the same person only once or twice. These connections have had a profound impact on my career with me receiving an offer for an internship from one them.
I am currently working on my masters thesis while working with a pair of researchers at a lab doing world-leading research. The connections with these researchers was made through a mutual friend I got the privilege of meeting at Indaba. Indaba was an amazing, life-changing experience that I would recommend to anyone interested in machine learning, especially those trying to start a career."
I would like to thank MTN for paying 6,000USD of the initial 20,238 goal: what remains 14,238 USD needed for tickets, visa fees, accommodation and pocket money (food, transport and pocket money). We need your help to take these brilliant students to Indaba!
Here is the link for the invitation letters of the participants to the Indaba.
Feel free to check them for more details.
Organizer
Tijan Zein
Organizer
Walnut Creek, CA
