Terragon Seeks Govt Support for Growth of Data Science in Nigeria

AYODEJI Balogun, co-founder and chief operations officer, Terragon Group, has urged government to partner with the private sector in order to fashion out 21st century curriculum that would prepare Nigerian students to fit into the emerging fourth industrial revolution (4IR) technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI), Data Science, among others.

He stated this at the recently concluded 2019 Data Science Nigeria (DSN) Summit & Bootcamp held in Lagos.

According to him, “We think that in terms of curriculum in the educational system in our schools, government can work together with private sector to influence the curriculum and infuse more advanced topics around data science, machine learning so that students could get access and hands on experience at a very early stage, before they get out of school and get trained by their employers.”

He also called on the government to provide adequate infrastructure that would enable players in the ecosystem perform their duties optimally.

“The biggest problems we have in Nigeria as far as I’m concerned, is access to data and infrastructure. In other countries, the government provides access to some sample data sets that engineers can work with to train their models, you don’t have to think about looking for data sets, here in Nigeria, there’s nothing like that, so we think that government can support a lot in that area”.

“In a continent of about 1.2 billion people across a landscape that may be larger than many other continents put together, it is often quite difficult to identify and reach people in Africa.

At Terragon, our goal is to use data and technology to simplify this process of connecting brands to the African consumer through intelligent connections at scale on the mobile device”

“We rely very heavily on data, and leverage data science to enable smart connections to mobile for businesses across Africa. Data science, artificial intelligence and machine learning are the tools of our trade.

This is why partnering with the Data Science Nigeria AI Summit and Bootcamp was very natural for us, as it aligns with our key objectives and goals. It has been very rewarding for us because we have been able to contribute to the growth of the ecosystem as well as the emerging talents that will lead us into the future.”

Balogun commended the conveners of DSN for the giant’s strides they have made in the sector, especially in the area of democratizing of AI knowledge through their various programmes in our tertiary institutions.

He also acknowledged that a lot still needs to be done in order to get Nigeria students ready for the forthcoming 4IR.