FATE Foundation Gets $4M Support from Google to Launch Advanced AI Upskilling Programme in SSA

Kayode Tokede 

FATE Foundation has announced a significant multi-country partnership with the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), supported by Google.org with  $4 million in funding.

This funding, aligning with Google.org’s focus on Knowledge, Skills and Learning, will support the launch of the Advanced Artificial Intelligence (AI) Upskilling Programme. 

The initiative is designed to build a sustainable and scalable ecosystem for advanced AI education across Higher Educational Institutions in four key countries: Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa.

Head of Google.org EMEA, Liza Ateh in a statement said “At Google, we are committed to building a safe, inclusive digital future. This commitment starts with investing in the talent and safety of our next generation of leaders across Africa. 

“This funding will empower local non-profit organizations and academic partners to deliver critical skilling programs. Furthermore, to cultivate a robust AI Talent Pipeline, we are making advanced AI knowledge accessible at the university level to build the innovators of tomorrow.”

Executive Director of FATE Foundation, Adenike Adeyemi,  said; “We are incredibly proud to partner with the African Institute of Management Sciences on the Advanced AI UpSkilling Project, with support from Google.org. This groundbreaking initiative is a direct response to the urgent need for deep AI competencies in Africa, empowering tertiary institutions, lecturers, and students in Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, and South Africa. 

“This strategic support aligns perfectly with FATE Foundation’s mission to foster innovation and sustainable economic growth across the continent, ensuring Africa is fully equipped to lead in the global technological future.” 

Director of the AIMS South Africa, Ulrich Paquet stated: “With the support of Google.org we are thrilled to partner with FATE Foundation on an incredibly important mission: to strengthen the teaching and research of AI in Africa. We strive for access to quality education, everywhere. The Google DeepMind AI Research Foundations curriculum was designed exactly for this purpose, to broaden participation in AI research. We look forward to the creative innovations from across Africa that will grow out of our joint project!”

“Over the next three years, the Advanced AI Upskilling Programme aims to equip over 30,900 students with advanced AI skills, empowering them to drive technological innovation across the continent. This will be achieved by supporting Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs) through sub-grants and utilizing a Train-the-Trainer model.

“The programme will directly impact at least 30 Higher Educational Institutions across the four target countries, empowering 292 Lecturers referred to as AI Champions and Teaching Assistants with the knowledge, skills, and tools to train the next generation of AI talents (penultimate and final year STEAM students).

“The core curriculum is built around the comprehensive Google DeepMind AI Research   Foundations Curriculum, which comprises eight specialized courses: Build Your Own Small Language Model, Represent your Language Data, Design and Train Neural Networks, Discover your Transformer Architecture, Finetune your Model, Align Your Model, Accelerate Your Model and Capstone: Develop Your Model for Real-World Impact. These courses will be thoughtfully localized for each country’s context, providing a rigorous and locally mentored educational experience,” he explained.