Why Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi believes Artificial Intelligence will create millions of jobs for Nigerians
The National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics was commissioned on 13th November 2020, with the mandate of accelerating Nigeria’s drive towards technological and economic development. The Centre, a facility of the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), is to provide a robust platform for achieving a National Digital Economy for Nigeria through digital literacy and skills development. It is committed to innovations in emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Internet of Things, (IOT) Innovation-driven Research and Development as well as harnessing the power of Discovery, Incubation, and Acceleration (DIA), which will make businesses more competitive through speeding up development and uptake of digital innovations. Kashifu Inuwa Abdullahi, Director General/ceo) of NITDA, is confident that the Centre will create a vision for the country. However, in this exclusive interview with Businessday’s Bashir Ibrahim Hassan, GM, Northern Operations, the very brilliant CEO and seemingly incurable optimist, Kashifu, highlights how the benefits of the centre can accrue to the country, vis-à-vis the projection by the World Economic Forum (WEF) that Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to create 133 million jobs globally. The National Center for artificial intelligence and Robotics has just been commissioned. What is the center about, and why do we need it in the country?
Basically, the Centre is about preparing Nigeria for the Fourth Industrial Revolution. We are on the verge of revolution. Therefore we need to prepare for it. Africa as a continent lost out on the first, second and Third Industrial Revolutions. As humans, we always innovate. Innovation is continuous, not episodic.
Following the history right from the agricultural revolution, human history had a paradigm shift from foraging to animal domestication for food production. That shift resulted in large human settlements and the creation of cities. The First Industrial Revolution brought about the mechanization of production using a steam engine. It replaced muscle power with mechanical power and drastically increased food production and employment generation.
The Second Industrial Revolution ushered in the power of electricity. The use of electricity drove this era for mass production as mechanical production was not as efficient as electrical power. However, there was a need for massive investment in generating electrical power, just as the first revolution required considerable investments in fabricating machines. The Third Industrial Revolution brought about electronics and the Internet, which also disrupted a lot of things. For instance, quite a number of industries and manufacturing companies went moribund due to the emergence of the Internet, but it created massive opportunities for wealth and job creation.
So if you look critically at the past industrial revolutions, you will observe clearly that the first movers captured the most value. Now the Fourth Industrial Revolution is riding over the Third Industrial Revolution using the Internet, but introducing more sophisticated technologies to automate production processes, using robotics and artificial intelligence.
It may interest you to note that although this new revolution will displace many people from their jobs, but it will create more job roles. Just recently, the global management consulting group, Mckinsey & Company, published its prediction, based on research, that in 2022, about 70 million jobs will be displaced by artificial intelligence, but it will create 133 million new job roles. If you look at the net difference, you would have about 60 million new jobs. Essentially, what this translates to is that if one does not reskill, such a person is at a risk of losing his or her job in this new age. But however, with reskilling and upskilling, one can always easily get a new job and fit-in conveniently. Therefore, we are trying to position Nigeria well enough to balance between losing and gaining. If our citizens don’t get the right skills, they will lose out. Jobs would be displaced. But if we reskill, train our younger ones to have new skills, we would capture value from these new jobs.
Just recently, Microsoft predicted that by 2025, 149 million new jobs in emerging technologies will be created as a result of the covid-19 pandemic. Therefore, our strategy is to to position Nigeria well to take advantage of the new and emerging technological advancement by putting up sophisticated systems and structures with state of the art facilities where our citizens can acquire the requisite skills necessary to drive a digital economy successfully.
The Centre will help in creating an innovation ecosystem to drive the digital economy. Innovation in a broader sense is not just about technology; it’s about business models, customer experience, and organizational structure. Therefore, we decided to start with artificial intelligence because it has got to be one of the generalpurpose technologies, in the sense that it cuts across all industries. So to this end, we needed to put up a strategic infrastructure with top- notch facilities where our citizens can learn and expand their knowledge about emerging technologies.
How do you intend to manage the Centre in terms of personnel, and funding until we start seeing the dividends?
I must say that we are innovating the way we do things. We are creating a community partnership. What we have learned is that you can’t be innovative in isolation. To be creative, you have to be in a community and work as a team. We are working with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT). There is an MIT programme called REAP (Regional Entrepreneurship Acceleration Program). It is a global
capstone initiative that helps regions accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship as well as promote socio-economic progress.
If you look at the world, innovation and wealth are not evenly distributed but are in clusters. Just recently, I read about the number of Unicorn Companies in the world. A unicorn company is a startup company with a valuation of over 1 Billion US dollars. There are currently 651 unicorn companies globally, 256 are in the United States, 204 in China, UK has only 24, India 21. Africa as a whole has only 3 Unicorn Companies, two in South Africa and one in Nigeria. The big question is: what is so special about these regions with these clusters in the ecosystem?
By virtue of success, they understand that you can’t be innovative in isolation, so they established a very strong synergy between key stakeholders.
The MIT-REAP identifies five critical stakeholders that can help you survive the innovation economy. These key stakeholders are academia, corporate, entrepreneur, risk capital, and the government. The first stakeholders are the universities, which are saddled with the responsibility of producing competent human capital that the industry requires. The second stakeholders are corporate organizations. These organizations are meant to absorb these students when they graduate. So you need to understand their requirements, and they need to understand your capability and capacity to meet their requirements.
Next are the entrepreneurs, which are the game changers that bring new things to the industry. Innovation is invention and commercialization. The commercialization aspect is like the entrepreneurship aspect. In Nigeria, we have so many inventors. Some are not even graduate but could invent things. What they lack is the knowledge on how to commercialize what they invent. Entrepreneurs are those that help commercialize and take the invention to the market. You could invent something purposely for education but could serve the health sector better. That’s why we need entrepreneurs who would help commercialize the inventions made by people in the universities.
The fourth stakeholders are Risk Capital or investors. They are the fund injectors for investment. If you have an idea, they could go into partnership with you and get a stake by investing. Government grant or seed fund is not scalable. So venture capital is needed. Lastly, the government plays the role of an enabler and creates the enabling environment and provide infrastructures.
Our recently commissioned Centre, the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, will provide a platform for these critical stakeholders to collaborate. So long as you have a viable idea, you can walk in, register, and make use of the marker space infrastructure, where you can design and produce your prototype products. We also have 3D printers to help print a 3D design. We also have on ground mentors that can help guide you with the soft and entrepreneurial skills you required to develop a pitch deck for potential investors. On the other hand, the investors will be using the center to meet with the entrepreneurs and people that turn ideas into products and services. By and large, the Centre is aimed at strengthening the innovation ecosystem.
In terms of management, the ecosystem will take over the Centre in the long run. In addition, some NITDA
subsidiaries, Office for ICT Innovation and Entrepreneurs (OIIE) and the Office for Nigerian Content Development in ICT (ONC) will also be operating from the Centre.
How much have you done to bring our universities and other institutions of learning onboard?
Thank you for the question. So, because it’s a regional initiative, we are starting with Abuja as a region. We have the Nile University onboard as one of the cohort core members. We have other universities within the Abuja region as members of the expanded board. We are also working on bringing all higher institutions in the FCT onboard.
This innovation is about boosting the economy, when should we expect full operation and impact of the center on the National economy?
We have already started working at the Centre. Things are picking up, and it is expected to be fully functional as soon as possible. The Nigeria National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) has already indicated interest to be part of the expanded corporate organization because of its Research Technology and Innovation (RTI) unit. The corporation wants to see what the startups have and how they can get value from it. Already, we have started putting the necessary structures on the ground. We are also working on a policy on Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship, which will ignite more innovation and strengthen the ecosystem in general.
Hopefully, by the middle of 2021, we would have started feeling the impact of the center. Already, the little we are doing is creating impact. Just between March and April this year, there was over 800% increase in terms of online payment and agent banking in Nigeria as a result of Covid-19 pandemic. Even as the government is relaxing the Covid-19 preventive protocol, most organizations would never go back to pre Covid-19 life because we appreciate the convenience of the online experience. Its drawbacks are becoming less disturbing.
How fast is Nigeria in capturing these values?
In Africa, we are among the leaders. We are the first to have a Federal Ministry of Communication and Digital Economy, the first in Africa to have the Data Protection Regulation, and we are also leading in terms of capturing values from the Data Protection Regulation. In Fintech, we are doing excellently well.
We are currently the third in Africa in terms of digitization, with South Africa in first position, followed by Kenya. However, we believe we have a competitive advantage over these two countries and will surely overtake them sooner. It is just about having the right policy and conducive environment, which is what the current administration is seriously working on.
Knowing that we have more potential in agriculture when it comes to economic diversification, what are the plans to collaborate or work with the sector?
You may be aware that we are currently working with the Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, and we have already developed some initiatives, one of which is the National Digital
Agricultural Strategy, which is set to be launched very soon.
Secondly, we have also reached an advanced stage in the development of the concept of the National Adopted Village for Smart Agriculture (NAVSA), which is aimed at boosting the capacity of young Nigerian farmers in the digital world market by digitally transforming the agricultural economy of these farmers as well as their models across all value chains in order to increase productivity.
The idea is to get people in rural areas to use the power of smart technology to improve food production. We piloted the Jigawa state programme with 130 farmers, who were trained on how to use technology to share information, create an ecosystem, connect to financial services, and connect to vendors and logistics organizations. To this end, we are already developing a portal and an App that can help create that agricultural value chains.
Lastly but not the least, we are building up with IT Hubs, innovation and incubation centres around the country to promote innovation, and agriculture is one of the key areas in which we support startups. We are also working with some startups on how to develop smart devices, Internet of Things (IOT) devices that can help farmers monitor their farms and know the right time to apply fertilizer, watering, and other agricultural activities.
We are doing a pilot prototype with an IT Hub in Kuje. When that is completed, we will start test running it. Artificial intelligence has the potential of adding more value when it comes to analyzing information and making decisions.
What are the current and foreseen challenges you see in the management and operation of this center?
It is more exciting than challenging because as a trained network engineer, l am trained to solve problems, troubleshoot, and find a walkaround solution when there is a problem. I derive pleasure from solving problems. However, there are challenges in terms of getting people to understand the technology and embrace it because you have to trust it before you can use it. Also, there is the issue of infrastructure. Aside from Lagos and Abuja, most states don’t have the infrastructure. So we are trying to create communities, get people to work together by sharing ideas. We need to create a collaborative mindset. Remember Steve Jobs saying: “Good artist copies, but a great artist steals.” This means you can have the idea, but you can’t turn it around. You might need someone’s contribution in turning your idea into a product or service. Our challenge is getting the stakeholders together and creating an enabling ecosystem.
Government has the political will, and we would always try to be inclusive in developing our policies, strategies, and plans. Just a few weeks ago, the Honourable Minister of Communication and Digital Economy sent a directive to NITDA to work with the ecosystem players to craft a Strategy on Digital Innovation and Entrepreneurship. So we are thinking of making a policy that can help us create this ecosystem and communities. Innovation, they say, is about four-hs -- the head, which is the knowledge, the heart, which means the spirit, the hand, which means the expertise, and the home, which means the community you need to operate. And that is essentially what we are trying to achieve at NITDA.
How many MDA’S are aware of this project and how many are showing the willingness to partner with you?
For us, the more, the merrier. We started the MIT-REAP journey with just one Agency, Petroleum Equalization Fund (PEF), but now we have more than 10. The truth is when you are doing something new, many just watch and observe to see if it will come out successful before they identify you and join the movement. We know that many institutions trust what we do, which is evident in the number of partnership requests we are getting. In fact, just last week, the management team of the Nigeria Shippers’ Council was at NITDA, and one of its major requests was to help them in digital transformation. NNPC was here to explore the innovation ecosystem, and many states like Jigawa, Ekiti, Edo, Nasarawa and Katsina – have also paid a courtesy visit to NITDA, seeking collaborative efforts as they have seen our competence and believe in our capacity.
Where do you envision this country to be in artificial intelligence and robotics in the next 4 years?
According to Mckinsey’s report, by 2030, Artificial Intelligence would add 13Trillion USD to the global GDP or 16%. The report projected that a developing country like Nigeria could add between 5 to 15% of its GDP by embracing AI. Being one of the first movers in Africa, Nigeria can add between 20Billion to 60Billion USD to its GDP. Globally Nigeria is leading in terms of entrepreneurship capacity. If we harness all our potential well enough, I believe we can reach and even surpass 15%.