A full-fledged international conference titled ‘AI in Ethiopia’ was organized by Addis Ababa University’s Industry Linkage and Technology Transfer (UILTT) in partnership with Information Technology and Scientific Computing, AAiT, Wolita Sodo University, EtherNet- Ministry of Science and Higher Education, Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence, Qene Games and Ethiopian Biotechnology Institute from October 28th to 30th, 2019.
The conference aimed at organizing Ethiopian researchers and advancing the field of AI for developing countries and beyond. Being the first of its type, the conference focused on creating awareness among all stakeholders on the potential of AI based techniques to solve the complex and challenging problems that our and other developing countries are facing in different areas. In addition, the conference brought in dispersed talents and resources so as to coordinate their efforts in national development and to breed innovation. In doing so, different stakeholders including industries, higher education institutions, researchers and students are expected to benefit.
Five invited international resource persons took part in the conference, based on an international call and application process. Apart from this, well known international AI resource persons including Dr. Timnit Gebru, Google AI, Co-founder of Black in AI, Computer Vision & Fairness in AI, Dr. Rediet Abebe, Cornell University, Mechanism Design for Social Good (MD4SG) and Prof. Yolanda Gil, University of Southern California, President of AAAI took part in the conference from distance. Nearly, 220 Ethiopian AI experts from all over the country took part in the conference.
AI competition for climate change was also hosted by Addis Ababa University’s Industry Linkage and Technology Transfer (UILTT) in collaboration with Google Developers Group Addis (GDG Addis). The competition was part of the three days event, first ever AI Conference in Ethiopia between the periods of 28 and 30 of October.
AI in Ethiopia aspires to be an annual gathering event for scientists, researchers, students and other stakeholders of the areas where they present their research findings, create collaborations and showcase research solutions in the context of Ethiopia and beyond. There were a number of outputs from the conference. Please follow the link to read more: https://aie.aau.edu.et/