Data Science Africa 2018
Abuja, Nigeria (12 Nov - 16 Nov 2018) [Logistic Note]
Since 2015, Data Science Africa (DSA) has held an annual summer school and workshop to train participants on machine learning and data science methods and provide an avenue for researchers to present work demonstrating the application of these techniques to problems relevant in the African context.
For 2018, DSA is expanding to West Africa with DSA 2018 Abuja in Nigeria 12th to 16th November. To consolidating DSA efforts in East Africa, DSA also had a DSA 2018 Nyeri in Kenya, and May 31st to June 8th. DSA 2018 Abuja will take DSA’s traditional structure of a three days Summer School and a two Day workshop, while DSA 2018 Nyeri had a six (6) days “training of Trainers” and a two day workshop.
DSA 2018 Abuja's tentative speakers and instructors include:
- Dina Machuve, Nelson Mandela African Institute of Science and Technology
- Ernest Mwebaze, Google AI, Ghana and Makerere University
- John Quinn, UN Global Pulse
- Neil Lawrence, Amazon and University of Sheffield
- Billy Okal, Voyage
- Moses Thiga, Kabarak University
- Chika YINKA-BANJO , University of Lagos
- Lehel Csató , Universitatea BABES-BOLYAI
- Olubayo Adekanmbi, MTN Nigeria
- Moustapha Cisse, Google AI
- Mourine Amutorine, Pulse Lab Kampala
- Ayorkor Korsah, Ashesi University Ghana
- Eric Sodomka, Facebook Research
In the tradition of previous Africa Data Science workshops, a summer school on machine learning and data science will be held prior to the main workshop. This summer school will target graduate students, researchers and professionals working with huge amounts of data or unique datasets.
The summer school will focus on introductory and advanced lectures in data science and machine learning as well as moderate to advanced practical and tutorial sessions where participants will get their hands wet wrangling and munging datasets and applying cutting edge machine learning techniques to derive inference from the data. Lectures will be given by distinguished world renown researchers and practitioners including researchers from Sheffield University, Amazon, University of Lagos, Facebook, Google, Pulse Lab Kampala, the AI and Data Science (AIR) lab-Makerere University, and Dedan Kimathi University of Technology (DeKUT), African University of Science and Technology (AUST) among others
The school will also involve end-to-end tutorial sessions from professionals walking the participants through a real data analytics problem from data acquisition to data presentation. To benefit from this course participants must have some background in programming particularly programming with Python and machine learning. The registration process will include submission of worked examples in Jupyter notebooks. Registration is now CLOSED.
School programme outline:
Stuff to install..
To ensure we hit the ground running, it is essential you install the prerequiste software and test it out and make sure it is working on your computer. The venue for the summer school will have some computers on which the software will have been installed but you are advised to come with your own laptop with the software installed.
Luckily all the software required has already been prepackaged in a bundle called Anaconda. You can download the various versions of the software for your laptop OS and architecture from the Anaconda website .
Stuff to do..
To ensure that the software is working fine on your machine and to get you up and running, download the following jupyter notebook and do the exercises in there. If you have not used jupyter notebook before, make friends with Google - a friend in need …
Troubleshooting and comments..
Use the comment section below to (a) ask questions that are not already answered (b) help your peers by providing answers to their questions, if you can.
Summer School Day 1
The first day of the data science school will start with an introduction of Data Science, introduce python, jupyter notebook and pandas and , Fundamentals of IoT, Data Visualisation and a tutorial on Mechanism Design. We have practical sessions for python, pandas and jupter and data Visualisation.
Time |
Activity |
Material |
|---|---|---|
08:00-09:00 |
Arrival and Registration |
|
09:00-09:30 |
Wellcoming Speech and Remarks |
|
09:30-10:30 |
Lecture 1: Introduction to Data Science |
|
10:30-11:00 |
Break |
|
11:00-12:00 |
Lecture 1: Python, Pandas and Jupyter Tutorial |
|
12:00-13:00 |
Lecture 2: Fundamentals of IoT |
|
13:00-14:00 |
Lunch |
|
14:00-14:30 |
Practical Session 1 - Python Pandas and Jupyter |
|
14:30-15:30 |
Lecture 3: Data Visualisation |
|
15:30-16:00 |
Break |
|
16:00-16:45 |
Practical session 2: Data Visualisation |
|
16:45-17:30 |
Tutorial 1: Mechanism Design |
Time |
Activity |
Material |
|---|---|---|
08:30-10:00 |
Classification |
|
10:00-10:30 |
Computer Vision and Image Analysis |
|
10:30-11:00 |
Break |
|
11:00-12:00 |
Computer Vision and Image Analysis |
|
12:00-13:00 |
Deep Learning |
|
13:00-14:00 |
Lunch |
|
14:00-15:00 |
Active Learning |
|
15:00-15:30 |
Deep Learning |
|
15:30-16:00 |
Break |
|
16:00-17:00 |
Data Engineering and Infrastructure |
|
17:00-17:30 |
Blockchain |
Summer School Day 3
Time |
Activity |
Material |
|---|---|---|
08:30-10:30 |
Bayesian Methods |
|
10:30-11:00 |
Break |
|
11:00-13:00 |
Reinforcement Learning |
|
13:00-14:00 |
Lunch |
|
14:00-15:00 |
Mechanism Design |
|
15:00-15:30 |
Spatial Analysis |
|
15:30-16:30 |
Break |
|
16:30-17:30 |
Natural Language Procesing Overview and Practical Session |
|
17:30-18:00 |
Organizers and Martin (Pulse Lab Kampala) |
The summer school is now fully subscribed, and registration has closed.
Call for Registration
The workshop will be organized around paper presentations and interactive panel discussions. We invite participants interested in presenting work at the workshop to submit a short abstract describing the application of data science methods to problems relevant to Africa. Please use the "Submit Abstract" button below. You will be notified whether your work will be presented orally or as a poster. These may include, for example, the following areas:
- Data Science for the Sustainable Development Goals
- Healthcare
- Agriculture
- Wildlife conservation
- Disaster response
- Geospatial modelling
- Telecommunications data modelling
- Economic monitoring
During the panel discussions, we will unite a wide range of stakeholders, including data scientists, representatives from government, development practitioners and the private sector; this will provide a unique setting in which innovative solution driven ideas can thrive.
Participants will also develop a framework for attracting young African talent, mentors and researchers from academia, the public sector and the private sector in Africa to engage in activities geared towards harnessing big data and real-time analytics for the public good.
Workshop programme outline:
Workshop Day 1
Time |
Presentation |
|
|---|---|---|
08:00-09:00 |
Arrival and Registration |
|
09:00-09:30 |
Welcome remarks |
|
09:30-10:15 |
Keynote 1 |
|
10:15-11:00 |
Keynote 2 - Machine Learning Systems Design: The Three Ds of Machine Learning |
|
11:00-11:30 |
Break |
|
11:30-12:10 |
Talk - Ambulance Tracking tool- Improving emergency coordination and response |
|
12:30-13:10 |
Talk - Application of Robotics in the African context |
|
13:10-14:00 |
Talk - Building Stronger Data Ecosystems Building Stronger Data Ecosystems |
|
14:00-15:00 |
Lunch |
|
15:00-15:40 |
Keynote 3 - Reflections on Algorithms,Education and Empowerment |
|
15:40-16:10 |
Keynote 5: Lessons from Academia: implementing Data Science projects with Government |
|
16:10-16:30 |
Talk - Chownet |
|
15:30-16:00 |
Break |
|
16:40-17:00 |
Wrap-up |
Workshop Day 2
Time |
Presentation |
|
|---|---|---|
08:00-08:30 |
Arrival and Registration |
|
08:30-09:30 |
Talk - Data Science 4 Sustianable Development Goals |
|
09:30-10:30 |
Keynote 4: TBC |
|
10:30-11:00 |
Talk: TBC |
|
11:00-11:30 |
Break |
|
11:30-12:30 |
Keynote 6: Mechanism Design for Social Good |
|
12:30-13:00 |
Talk: TBC |
|
13:00-13:30 |
Closing and Wrap-up |
|
13:30-14:30 |
Lunch |
The workshop is now fully subscribed, and registration has closed.
Collaborators
Sponsorship
Gold Sponsors
Silver Sponsors
Sponsoring Data Science Africa 2018 Event is a great way to communicate your commitment to support the achievement of the sustainable development goals. To become a sponsor, please contact Data Science Africa at info@datascienceafrica.org