This Monday at 11:52 am the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, took to X (formerly Twitter) to ask Nigerian to recommend top researchers capable of creating AI strategy, according to him the government is building on existing work done by the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) to develop a National Al Strategy, hence, it is expanding its co-creation approach to engage and include top Al researchers of Nigerian descent globally.
The white paper report he uploaded, explained the objective of the search, its importance, and the method of achieving it.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has become a multi-purpose technology transforming production and service delivery, with the potential to significantly impact economic growth and social progress. Recent research shows that Al could contribute up to $15.7 trillion to the global economy by 2030, with $3 trillion from increased productivity and $9.1 trillion from new products and services (PwC, 2018).
The International Finance Corporation projects that the strategic adoption of Al could add up $234 billion to Africa’s GDP by 2030. Nigeria in this loop is considered to have a fast-growing technology start-up ecosystem (having attracted 25% of the $1.3 billion funding to African tech start-ups in 2021) and with proactive leadership, is well-positioned to leverage Al for economic diversification and inclusive growth. As an innovation leader on the African continent, Nigeria needs to develop a national strategy to harness the power of Al for sustainable development.
However, along with the opportunities, Al governance also poses some complex socio-technical challenges. As algorithms are deployed in high-stake domains like healthcare, finance, and security, concerns are emerging around ethics, bias, transparency, job automation and privacy. Both policy makers and researchers are of a consensus that a human-centered approach is essential to ensure Al systems are fair and accountable to all, across gender, ethnic and socioeconomic groups.
A National Al Strategy for Nigeria to responsibly steer the Al 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 Al innovation that improves welfare and expands opportunities for all its citizens.
Seems like Nigerians are in support of this new initiative from the comments, several commended it. If there is one thing this government might be getting right, it should be using AI to make the lives of its citizens easier.
