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By Fortune Abang
The Israeli Ambassador to Nigeria, Michael Freeman, has declared the country’s readiness to strengthen partnership with Nigeria in bolstering Artificial Intelligence (AI) applications globally.
Freeman disclosed this during the closing ceremony of the maiden Innovation Week organised by the Embassy for the Innovation Fellowship for Aspiring Inventors and Researchers (i-FAIR) programme participants, on Thursday in Abuja.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the event is designed for participants to build capacity as innovators, startup founders, researchers and entrepreneurs in innovation and AI-driven business development.
The event began on June 1, with the theme: “From Ideas to Impact: Building AI-Enabled Ventures for the Future”.
According to the Israeli envoy, AI does not only take away jobs, does not have a Nigerian or African voice, can help to create jobs, and is a tool that could be used to make people and products better in business operations.
“What we have done today is to ensure the more you use AI, the more there will be a Nigerian voice and African voice in AI, and the more AI will be useful to people across the continent.
“We have not done this before. This is the first time that we have gone out with AI, because the Israeli government has made a decision to go all in on AI.
“This is to become one of the world leaders in AI within the next few years and we have made a decision that we want to share that knowledge where we can with Nigeria, primarily through iFAIR programme and other places,” he said.
He explained the initiative was designed to enhance expertise in AI and ensure a better future, not only for Israelis, but also for Nigerians.
Freeman added that the only way to achieve that objective was by deepening Israel-Nigeria partnership.
This, according to him, is by focusing on utilising AIto increase human application capacity, job operations and increase creativity in workplaces.
Dor Yaacov, AI lead facilitator from Unistream, an Israeli non-profit organisation focused on entrepreneurship development, said AI application could enable Africans develop sustainable solutions tailored to tackling local challenges.
He commended the participants for demonstrating that Nigerian entrepreneurs could lead in developing solutions capable of tackling not only local challenges, but also global ones through the use of AI.
Yaacov said, “This week, we met warm, smart, and very creative people, who are not just talking about problems, but want to solve challenges in their daily lives.
“Challenges in education, in health, agriculture,about sustainability, security and community development.
“These are real challenges for millions of people around the world, which is why we will hear about startups from Nigeria that solve problems for millions of people soon.”
The event featured presentations by representatives of the participating teams on AI operations, knowledge sharing about AI experiences and presentation of certificates. (NAN) (www.nannews.ng)
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