Data Science Nigeria to host bootcamp, National Big Data Economy Summit

Data Science Nigeria is set to hold the second edition of its bootcamp aimed at bridging capacity gaps in Data Science for intermediate and expert-level Nigerian professionals and students, who are interested in machine learning, R or Python programming languages and statistics for advanced data analytics.

According to the organisers, the four-day bootcamp which is part of an effort to make Nigeria the Data Science outsourcing hub for Africa before 2019 and to create a million new jobs during the next 10 years, will be heralded by a national summit on the Big Data economy to discuss and showcase relevant case studies of how the application of data science is driving socio-economic development in emerging markets.
Yemi Kale, the Statistician General of the Federation has been confirmed as the keynote speaker of the summit which will open discussions about real-world applications of data science in the economy, consumer behaviour, health, business, city planning, security, agriculture, manufacturing and logistics.
Scheduled to kick off with the bootcamp on Thursday, 12 October 2017, the summit will showcase many local and international tools and algorithms from leading data science firms.
Confirmed speakers for the summit include Olumide Olayinka, Partner, KPMG; Juliet Ehimuan-Chiazor, Country Director, Google Nigeria; Babafemi Ogungbamila, Chief Information Officer, Interswitch; Dipo Faulkner, Country Manager, IBM; Olufemi Awoyemi, Chief Executive Officer, Proshare Nigeria; Ayotunde Coker, CEO Rack Centre and Bernard Kijie Ewah President/Chief Creative Officer, keoun.ng
Other leading experts expected at the conference are Tunji Adegbesan of Gidimo, Nadayar Enegesi of Andela, Sulaimon Afolabi, Babajide Ogunsanwo of Leadership-By-Data, Dele Tejuoso of Wifi Combat Academy, Steve Babaeko of X3M Ideas, Oluseun Onigbinde of BudgIT, Ngozi Dozie of OneFi, Adetayo Bamiduro MAX.ng. In addition, the summit will showcase some experts like Shingai Manjengwa of Fireside Analytics Canada, Samuel Odeloye, Jacques Ludik and Emeka Okoye of Cymantiks.
The free residential bootcamp which can be registered for on www.datasciencenigeria.org comes with an explicit requirement which is that all the would-be participants are expected to complete three courses on DataCamp or Microsoft Professional Certificate Track in Data Science.
This will be followed by a Kaggle competition to select the best participants for the intellectually stimulating and career-enhancing bootcamp. Best participants at the bootcamp can access internship and mentoring opportunities provided by KMPG, Microsoft 4Afrika and OneFi while DataCamp says it will provide free access to its learning platform.
Data Science Nigeria is a non-profit initiative of Bayo Adekanmbi, MTN’s executive who says “it is spurred on by a compelling drive to raise a new generation of world-class data scientists and knowledge entrepreneurs who will set up data science-based businesses and attract foreign exchange to Nigeria. This will position the country to access its fair share of the over $125 billion Big Data analytics market as foreign currency earnings.”
The organisers say the bootcamp will also include a very competitive hackathon aimed at using Nigeria-centric data to explore, extrapolate and explain local socio-economic issues. The Nigerian Bureau of Statistics and ProShare Nigeria will provide data support services to the participants.

Jumoke Akiyode Lawanson