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Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Nigerian youth advised to embrace datapreneurship

Nigerians youths have been advised to embrace data preneurship, according to a C-Level Executive with MTN Nigeria, BayoAdekanmbi, reports ITRealms.

Speaking at the inaugural workshop in Lagos at the weekend, Adekanmbi who doubles as the convener and moderator of the event, told participants that the initiative, a professional-led approach is designed to train and mentor young Nigerians through face-to-face, virtual online classes, project-based support and holiday boot camps.

The ultimate intent, he said, is to raise a special breed of entrepreneurs who will set up data science based businesses and attract foreign exchange to the nation.

Mr. Adekanmbi who 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”. 

Data and data science, he said, 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 sciences.

The workshop, ITRealms reports, assembled leading lights in data science to mentor participants as panelists, including 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”.

“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.

The IBM Chief Scientist, further said, “Data is the new basis of comparative advantage”, stressing that globally the world is 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 customability of the insights generated.

Nigeria, he said, has a high potential for disruption through business model and technological innovation, citing 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.

Chuks Egbune/GEE
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Pix:---Chijioke Dozie, Director, OneFi, Bayo Adekanmbi, C-Level Executive, MTN Nigeria and Convener, Data Science Nigeria; Anthony Obi, GM, Business Intelligence, MTN; Dr. Uyi Stewart, Chief Scientist, IBM (USA), Guest Speaker and Ngozi Dozie, Founder, OneFi Nigeria at the innaugural workshop and unveiling of Data Science Nigeria at the Oriental Hotel on Saturday. 
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