Nigeria’s Minister of Communications, Innovations, and Digital Economy, Bosun Tijani is inviting top researchers, both Nigerians and non-Nigerians, who possess experience in working within the Nigerian market to join the research for a National AI strategy.
Tijani is seeking their expertise to contribute to the development of an improved strategy for fostering technological innovation. According to him, the goal is to enhance the tech landscape by incorporating insights from those who have previously engaged with the Nigerian market, ultimately leading to more effective and impactful innovations in the field of technology.
We’re curating a list of the top researchers of Nigerian descent from all over the world to join us in co-creating a National AI Strategy. The strategy will help shape our approach to building innovative tech solutions to our most pressing national problems
Bosun Tijani, Nigeria’s Minister for Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy
AI Adoption Is Crucial for Economic Growth
AI is a versatile technology reshaping how things are made and services are provided. Its potential impact on economic growth and social advancement is substantial. Research suggests that AI might add around $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030. This includes $3 trillion from boosted productivity and $9.1 trillion from novel offerings.
As AI algorithms are applied in critical areas like healthcare, finance, and security, issues related to ethics, bias, transparency, job displacement, and privacy are coming to the forefront. According to Bosun Tijani, both policymakers and researchers agree that prioritizing a human-centred perspective is crucial. This approach is necessary to guarantee that AI systems are useful and address the needs of everyone, regardless of gender, ethnicity, or socioeconomic background.
Regarding this, the Minister is seeking expertise in response to this situation. The necessity for a National AI Strategy in Nigeria arises to guide the AI revolution in a responsible manner towards achieving key national objectives like creating jobs, fostering social inclusion, and promoting sustainable development. Through collaborative leadership, Nigeria aims to lead the way in ethical and inclusive AI innovation, which will enhance the well-being and provide opportunities for every citizen.
What A National AI Strategy Hopes to Achieve in Nigeria
The objective of the strategy is to attain certain goals. Leveraging the groundwork laid out by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) in the creation of a National AI strategy, Tijani Bosun expressed in a statement the government’s intention to broaden its collaborative method and aims to involve prominent AI researchers of Nigerian origin worldwide in the development of a National AI Strategy.
A National AI Strategy for Nigeria to responsibly steer the AI revolution towards achieving national goals around job creation, social inclusion and sustainable development becomes imperative. With collaborative leadership, Nigeria seeks to pioneer ethical and inclusive AI innovation that improves welfare and expands opportunities for all its citizens.
Bosun Tijani
Other developments AI strategy can achieve in Nigeria include;
- Agricultural Transformation: AI-powered technologies can enhance farming practices, improve crop yields, and contribute to food security.
- Healthcare Advancements:** AI can aid in diagnosing diseases, drug discovery, personalized medicine, and remote patient monitoring, thereby improving healthcare services.
- Financial Inclusion: AI can help provide financial services to underserved populations through mobile banking, digital payments, and credit scoring.
- Smart Cities: AI can play a role in building smart cities with intelligent traffic management, energy optimization, waste management, and improved urban planning.
- Education Enhancement: AI-powered educational tools can provide personalized learning experiences and address gaps in education access.
- Environmental Conservation: AI can be used for monitoring and managing environmental factors, such as air and water quality, and contributing to sustainability efforts.
- Cybersecurity: AI can enhance cybersecurity by identifying and responding to threats in real-time, safeguarding critical infrastructure and sensitive data.
- Government Efficiency:** AI can streamline administrative processes, reduce bureaucracy, and improve government service delivery.
- Global Competitiveness:** A robust AI strategy can position Nigeria as a global player in AI research, development, and innovation, fostering international collaborations and partnerships and lots more.
Regarding the methods of carrying out this strategy, Bosun Tijani explained in a statement that leading AI researchers will be identified globally by using data from Lens. He said articles related to AI with Nigerian-affiliated authors were previously gathered, yielding 1,349 publications (5,127 records when divided by author).
For a broader scope, globally, the government accessed the data from the same source, comprising the top 50,000 AI journal articles published annually over the past 6 years (2018 – 2023), resulting in 299,905 publications. After splitting each article by author, over 1,195,598 observations were received. Merging these datasets, over 1,201,366 observations were obtained after removing null author entries.
Speaking about things in place for achieving the AI strategy, two Machine Learning models (Naïve Bayes & Logistic Regression) were constructed to identify Nigerian heritage among AI research authors. The Naïve Bayes model demonstrated 95.34% accuracy, while the Logistic Regression model achieved 97.40% accuracy in a two-stage classification process.
The Research Index
To systematically identify top AI researchers from a large pool, Bosun noted that a research index similar to the h-index(an author-level metric that measures both the productivity and citation impact of the publications) has been devised. Also, the “sjrdata” library was utilized in leveraging SCImago Journal & Country Rank Data, which collates citations from 5000+ global publishers. Using the 2021 rankings (27,339 journals), and merging this data with researcher information via their ISSN(is especially helpful in distinguishing between serials with the same title).
In Stage 1 involves the machine-supported decisions:
- Naive Bayes predicted potential Nigerian researchers, yielding 71,778 records.
- Logistic Regression further refined the prediction, producing 14,798 potential records.
- Removing duplicates led to 8,473 unique records.
- Researchers with at least 2 publications were isolated for calculating the research index, resulting in 3,188 records with 1,060 distinct authors.
- The top 145 researchers were identified based on index rankings, eventually narrowing down to the 100 most likely Nigerian researchers in the AI field.
While in Stage 2, the ministry looks forward to engaging in crowdsourcing. According to the statement, the models might have a little chance of introducing false positives (about 4 in 100 cases), prompting the need for wider public participation in refining the researcher list.
