As the drive for the digital economy continues to gain momentum in Nigeria, the Nigeria Computer Society (NCS) has stressed the need for the country to fast-track the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI), as this will boost development in every sector of the economy.
The NCS President, Prof. Adesina Sodiya, made this known during a world press conference held at the Society’s head office on Tuesday in Lagos in preparation for a first-of-its-kind forthcoming mega forum tagged ‘Artificial Intelligence Summit’ which is set to hold from March 23 to 25, 2022 in Lafia, Nasarawa state.
According to Sodiya, “We are putting this summit together because we are all aware of what AI is doing in business, government and even in private organizations. And we need to work on our knowledge in the area of AI so that Nigeria will also continue to benefit from all the opportunities that are available in the adoption of AI.
“And we need to work on our knowledge in the area of AI so that Nigeria will also continue to benefit from all the opportunities that are available in the adoption of AI.
“The NCS President said the summit will not only give insight to the potentials embedded in the deployment of Artificial Intelligence (AI), but also to have indigenous technological innovations and robots which can fast-track national development for businesses and governments in Nigeria.
“We actually came up with this idea because we know that NCS is the umbrella body of IT practitioners in Nigeria, and will normally take the lead in everything we do.
“Apart from using AI in the financial sector, we have been using AI in government and in public organizations. Of course, AI is doing a lot for businesses. But the fact is that we have not started to adopt it totally in Nigeria. But the level we are is not what we expect to be. We need to put something together so that we start laying the foundation of genuine and reliable AI development in Nigeria.”
We know our students, some of our young ones are also making efforts, but the efforts have not yielded the kind of resources, and of course, we believe that having this AI, we will be able to call everybody to be able to bring everybody on board. With this, we will be able to talk or discuss how we want to promote AI in Nigeria.
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“Again, now, I want to inform us that the focus of the AI summit this year is AI for national development, artificial intelligence for national development as the focus of the summit. And, of course, we want to start promoting the use of AI to enhance our national development and start benefiting immensely from the opportunities that are available in Nigeria.”
Speaking further, Sodiya highlighted the essence of the summit, which include AI adoption, Talent development, Involvement of tertiary and secondary school students, and Education and Research. He noted that the registration fee is N10,000 for all participants, except students and virtual participants who are expected to pay N5,000 and N15,000 respectively.
Expected as special guests at the event are, the Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo as the chairman of the occasion; Engr. Sule Abdulahi, Executive Governor of Nasarawa state; the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Pantami; Minister of Science and Technology, Dr. Ogbonnaya Onu; the Chairman of Dangote Group, Aliko Dangote as the special chairman.
Others are Prof. Umar Danbatta, Executive Vice Chairman of Nigerian Communications Commission (NCC); Mr. Inuwa Kachifu, Director General of National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA).