In August 2019, I attended Deep Learning Indaba in Nairobi, Kenya. This annual meeting aimed at strengthening African Machine Learning. The conference brought together about 700 members of Africa’s Artificial Intelligence community at the Kenyatta University for a week-long event of teaching, research and debate around the state of the art in Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence. The sessions were interactive and interesting. I was very much inspired by the keynote - Beyond Buzzwords: Innovation, Imagination, and Inequity in the 21st Century by Prof. Ruha Benjamin of African American Studies at the Princeton University.
I noticed an increase of participants from Tanzania particularly from my host institution (Nelson Mandela African Institution of Science and Technology) from 3 last year to 14 this year out of 23 Tanzanian participants. Organizers were very helpful and supportive. The poster session was improved and more fun this year. I presented my poster with the title “An Ensemble Predictive Model Based Prototype for Student Dropout in Secondary Schools” and honored to be among the prize winners of MIT Press Book.
I would like to thank my supervisors (Dr. Khamisi Kalegele and Dr. Dina Machuve) for their continued support. Special thanks go to the Centre of Excellence in Mathematical and Statistical Sciences (CoE-MaSS) for sponsoring my participation in DLI 2019. Lastly but not least, I would like to thank Richard Klein for timely updates of my flight change details.
The next conference will be in Tunisia. I encourage others to apply and experience this great opportunity.