The Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani said that the federal government has awarded a total of N200 million in grants to 55 Nigerian researchers and innovators through two of its tech programs, the Nigeria Artificial Intelligence Research Scheme (NAIRS) and Fourth Industrial Revolution Technology Application (4IRTA).
The Minister disclosed this in a post on X while unveiling the Ministry’s plan for the next one year.
According to him, the government is now working on harnessing the results of the research and solutions built by the innovators for the benefit of the economy.
“After awarding grants totalling N200 million under these two thematic programs to 55 Nigerian researchers and innovators, we are collating the outcomes of their demonstration projects so as to scale relevant solutions to businesses to drive increased productivity.
“We plan to expand these demonstration projects to other sectors Such as education and healthcare,” the Minister stated.
The programs
Under the NAIR scheme, the Ministry in December last year announced the selection of 45 Nigerian researchers to receive grants to develop their AI projects.
The selected AI researchers cut across healthcare, agriculture, finance, and education. According to Tijani, the Scheme aims to foster a vibrant and sustainable AI ecosystem in Nigeria by providing grants and facilitating knowledge sharing and collaboration among individuals and organizations in the AI industry.
He added that the proposals from the selected researchers tackle some of Nigeria’s pressing challenges and offer the potential to “revolutionize industries, empower communities, and unlock a future full of possibilities.”
Similarly, in January this year, 10 startups were shortlisted under the 4IRTA program to receive up to N10 million in funding to deepen the application of agriculture technologies.
Tijani, who unveiled the selected projects, said the initiative was in support of President Bola Tinubu’s mandate to cultivate 500,000 hectares of land across Nigeria to boost food security.
AI Strategy
Meanwhile, on the administration’s efforts to promote the development and adoption of artificial intelligence (AI) in the country, Tijani said the country’s National Artificial Intelligence Strategy draft document is currently being reviewed by MDAs, following which it would be adopted as a national policy to guide all government efforts in Al.
He added that the government has also formed the Al Collective which will collaborate on research, projects of interest, hackathons, and seminars to develop an inclusive approach to Nigeria’s AI initiatives.
What you should know
- Aside from the AI Strategy currently being reviewed, the Nigerian government recently launched its Large Language Model, which is expected to position the country as an AI leader in Africa.
- According to the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, the LLM will be trained in 5 low-resource languages and accented English to ensure stronger language representation in existing datasets for the development of Artificial Intelligence solutions.
- The AI tool is currently being built by a Nigerian startup, Awarri in partnership with a global tech company, DataDotOrg, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and the National Centre for AI and Robotics (NCAIR).
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