Young Nigerians in
their hundreds participated in the maiden workshop for the Data Science Nigeria
aimed at positioning the country to benefit from the growing global importance
of data and data science in proffering solutions to the myriads of human
challenges.
The
ultimate intent of which is to raise a special breed of entrepreneurs who will
set up data science based businesses and attract foreign exchange to the
nation.
Adekanmbi
disclosed that the initiative is a give-back project premised on what he has
learnt across the world especially during his recent one-year PhD research
sabbatical in the UK, India and America said, “India is already tapping
into the Data Science space and I believe Nigeria can become Africa’s data
science outsourcing destination with our brilliant undergraduates, graduates
and young analysts with degrees in Engineering/Sciences and other numerate
subjects”.
According
to him, data and data science will become the oil of the 21st century and
Nigeria must join the league of countries that will be positioned for
comparative advantage in data science. The workshop assembled leading lights in
Data Science to mentor participants as panelists. These include Ngozi Dozie of
OneFi Nigeria, Dr. Femi Oyenuga of Oracle, Seun Onigbinde of BudgIT and
Iyinoluwa Aboyeji, Founder, Andela while a US-based Nigerian leading data
scientist and IBM Distinguished Engineer/Chief Data Scientist, Dr.
Uyi Stewart inspired and motivated the audience with his presentation titled:
Leveraging Data Science to enable Nigeria Leapfrog”
The
panel analyzing the growing importance of data science submits that countries,
organizations and individuals need to make smart and sharper decisions, to do
these “they need data and data scientists”. According to them, data
science is the potpourri of information and insights intelligently brought
together to add value to human life. This can be done by studying pattern over
time in a bid to build intelligence.
However,
to become proficient in data science, both soft and technical skills are
needed. These include natural curiousity, communication, romance with data and
attention to details.
Attention
to details is critical, emphasized the Aboyeji (Andela) unfortunately, not many
Nigerians are good at this, he said, “the world is still a secret, you make
money by identifying those secrets and proffering solutions to solve the
challenges”.
Delivering his keynote, Dr. Uyi who currently holds 10 patents in the US, said: “Nigeria is at the tipping point with two choices open to her: investing in infrastructure or invest in data which is technology that will bring about transformational change through killer applications”.
Delivering his keynote, Dr. Uyi who currently holds 10 patents in the US, said: “Nigeria is at the tipping point with two choices open to her: investing in infrastructure or invest in data which is technology that will bring about transformational change through killer applications”.
“Investing
in infrastructure will only bring about incremental change, this is where most
of us are right now” said Dr. Uyi “If we decided to invest in infrastructure we
choose to compete with the Chinese, we have to maintain the structure
unfortunately, we do not have maintenance culture. We can achieve progress
through data not infrastructure”, he submitted.
According
to the IBM Chief Scientist, “Data is the new basis of comparative advantage”,
he disclosed that we are surrounded by a sea of data with 2.5 Gigabytes of data
generated every day.
Considering
the scenarios, “Nigeria’s immediate and strategic opportunity is to leapfrog to
the next wave of IT by leveraging technology and cognitive system”, Dr. Uyi
advised, adding that there should be a sense of urgency for data and data
science. To make progress, he said participants must innovate on how they
collect data, curate data, run analysis and the custom ability of the insights
generated.
According
to the data expert, Nigeria has a high potential for disruption through
business model and technological innovation.
He
cited models where data have been used as bedrock to bring about breakthrough
developments in Agriculture (Kenya), Health –Ebola (Sierra Leone) and
education. Other uses of data include e-government, smart city planning,
security, tourism, to mention but a few.
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