KAMPALA- University Students have been asked to prioritize innovativeness and tap into a wide range of opportunities that come with modern technology like Artificial Intelligence (AI).
“AI creates new jobs , ruling out the fear by some members of the society who have been relying on history that technology will take away all jobs by replacing people in the field of Industrialization. There was also a fear that machines were to replace people on farms but these have instead made Agriculture more efficient.” Remarked Dr. Emeka Akaezuwa the Vice Chancellor of International University of East Africa in welcoming remarks at Dr. Eric Daimler’s lecture on Wednesday.
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He added that technology is supposed to be managed by people not to manage itself as many may want the whole world to believe. “Like here in Uganda, we can decide on which sectors that need automation , because the whole process of automation is to improve processes and once that is done, you earn more revenue and export more.”
As far as their program is concerned, Emeka revealed that they are training students for jobs of today and tomorrow , not only for those jobs which will be swept away by AI.
“IUEA is among the first universities in Uganda to introduce AI, it was done in 2015 and we have been working on it before Chat GPT became popular. We have been improving upon our curriculum so that we can have organized skills in this area as we embark on training students whom the government will rely on in future to provide AI services.”
Dr. Eric Daimler, the Globally leading AI expert, during his presentation at the Special Executive Seminar held at IUEA , revealed that he is Uganda to equip learners with skills that will enable them fit to compete internationally.
“Over four billion people worldwide are using and generating data, but it’s scattered and dispersed across various sources, and not centralized in a single system. To harness its full potential, we need robust systems that can efficiently collect, organize, and maintain this data in a structured and accessible way.”.
Dr. Eric also asked students to put much focus on AI because it has a number of employment opportunities world wide and they can tap into them from the comfort of their homes with the help of technology.
“About the competition for jobs, we are living in a global village, you can get to the whole world with in a day, we are competing globally. Your phone’s access to information is not different from mine because we are competing globally and we have to embrace that.” He further added
Gloria Nassuna, an official from Ministry of ICT and National Guidance who was among the attendees noted that they are looking so much into regulation because it is crucial for establishing guidelines and standards in the use of the technology. “ We also have projects and programs that support innovators and foster new innovations. Many of these innovators have incorporated AI or used AI for their projects.”
Artificial intelligence is the theory and development of computer systems able to perform tasks normally requiring human intelligence , such as visual perception, speech recognition, decision making and translation between languages.
About Daimler
Dr. Eric Daimler is a leading authority in robotics and artificial intelligence with over 20 years of industry experience as an entrepreneur, investor, academic researcher, and policymaker. Daimler is the co-founder and CEO of SpinGlass, a multi-tiered platform for fueling the development and adoption of emerging robotics and AI technology. SpinGlass creates, acquires, and applies modern digital technologies including AI and robotics to industries traditionally slow to adopt them.
Eric served under the Obama Administration as a Presidential Innovation Fellow in the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, driving the agenda for U.S. leadership in research, commercialization, and public adoption of AI & Robotics. He previously co-founded six technology companies that have done pioneering work in fields from storage software systems to statistical arbitrage. Additionally, he has taught Software Engineering at Carnegie Mellon and founded the university’s Entrepreneurial Management program, also helping to launch Carnegie Mellon’s Silicon Valley Campus.
