Liquid Telecom Partners With Zindi To Accelerate Africa’s Data Science Ecosystem

Leading pan-African telecoms group Liquid Telecom has announced a partnership with Zindi to support the rollout of its new data science competition platform across Africa.

Zindi was launched last week at the AI Expo Africa in Cape Town, providing a platform for African data scientists to “convene, collaborate and compete” to solve the continent’s most pressing challenges.

The platform is being launched with three inaugural competitions that will be open for the next two to four months. This includes a challenge co-sponsored by Uber for data scientists to optimise public transportation in Nairobi, and another to automatically process text in documents to classify them according to the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals framework.

A total prize money of up to $12,000 (Ksh1.2 million) is available to entrants in this first set of competitions. New competitions are due to be launched each month.

There is growing demand across Africa for data scientists with the technical and analytical skills to understand exponential volumes of data (also known as Big Data) and come up with evidence-based solutions.

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“Recognising this, Liquid Telecom is finding new ways to support the development of data science skills in the region. It already provides high-speed internet access and Azure credits to entrants competing in the DataHack for Financial Inclusion (DataHack4FI) competition – which is using data science to develop new solutions to improve financial inclusion. It is also supporting Strathmore Business School (SBS) in Nairobi with its new data analytics centre focused on data-driven research and practices for African businesses,” reads a statement from Liduid Telecom.

Liquid Telecom also runs masterclass programmes in data science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) for start-ups in the region.

Through this latest partnership, Liquid Telecom will help further unite the region’s data science ecosystem by promoting the Zindi platform to its customers and innovation partners, which include leading innovation hubs, academic institutions and start-up competitions.

“Data science has an enormous role to play in Africa’s digital future – and now is the time to ensure we develop the technical skills that the region needs to excel in the Fourth Industrial Revolution. The Zindi platform offers a dynamic way for data scientists to learn and experiment with large sets of data and we’re really excited to be working alongside Zindi on this initiative,” said Ben Roberts, Group Chief Technology and Innovation Officer at Liquid Telecom.

Liquid Telecom has plans to host its own competition on the Zindi platform in the near future, enabling data scientists to analyse its data sets and come up with solutions to better serve customers.

“From novices to experts, Zindi is bringing together African data scientists to improve their skills and create solutions to real-world problems. Our partnership with Liquid Telecom will broaden the reach and visibility of the Zindi platform across Africa – enabling data scientists to connect with more peers and access more meaningful data sets,” said Celina Lee, CEO of Zindi.