The Explore Series: Meet the Faculty
Join us for an exciting 4 month series to explore Data Science, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence.
About the Series:
The coursework and sessions are underwritten by industry experts and offer an excellent resources on how to turn ideas, data and models into products that scale. The session will be available live on Saturday, 18th April 2020 through the listed links.
The opening Keynotes facilitated by Everlyn Asiko and Mercy Njue will run from 8:30am to 9:30am and will be available through this link.
Everlyn Asiko is a data scientist with a passion for teaching and mentoring. Her work in accident location extraction from natural language processing aims at drawing location insights from natural text and has been presented at a Pan African AI conference as a poster. She is a Data Science technical mentor at Moringa school and also mentors Google Africa scholars in the Andela Learning Community program. Previously, she worked at Magharibi Innovation Hub as a community manager where she was in charge of the projects and the individuals at the hub.
Mercy Njue is the founder and CEO of Botlab, a company that provides training in data science and cyber security. She has a bachelor’s degree in Business and Technology as well as an MBA from Africa Nazarene University. She is trained in General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) by University of Groningen in the Netherlands and is a certified IBM cloud professional, as well as a graduate of the Data Science for Business Leader program by Data Incubator Chicago. She leads the Nairobi chapter of Women in Data, an organization that supports women exploring careers in data science. Mercy founded Botlab with the mission to highlight the power of technology. Her goal is to increase the uptake of technology use in Kenya. To date, Botlab has trained over 3000 students and professionals. Programs run include courses for company leaders to emphasize the power of data, sessions on cyber security and risk mitigation, and tech master classes for SMEs. Mercy is a strong believer in giving back and opening doors for those that follow in her footsteps. She is a leading voice on the Women in Tech Kenya platform, and has contributed immensely to the advancement of women in STEM.
Explore Artificial Intelligence:
Facilitated by Katie Wanjiku, this session will provide hands-on insights into building self-driving cars with a demo in PX4 Rover kit.
Katie Wanjiku has built industry-scale AI and robotics for companies in Silicon Valley, London and Bangalore. She is presently engaged at Facebook, Antler and Africa’s Talking Labs focused on hitec gaps in Sub Sahara. Her mission is to power local talents and businesses to scale globally and transfigure the ecosystem for good.
The session will start at 9:30am and will be available through this link.
Explore Data Science:
This session, facilitated by Maureen Mathenge and Cythia Asingwa will cover key foundational concepts into practical data science.
Maureen is a very enthusiastic individual with a Bachelor of Economics and Statistics.She engaged in a student-run organization,AIESEC,where she nurtured her leadership skills coordinating volunteer and internship programs. She has experience in managing high performing teams,communication and operational planning and implementation. She is enrolled in a data science course where she continuously grows her skill in data analysis and machine learning.
Cynthia Asingwa is a Data Science junkie with a degree in Mathematics and Computer, majoring in Applied Mathematics. She derives joy in supporting research in maternal and paediatric health care with a goal in learning what solutions make health systems tick in Sub-Saharan Africa. Apart from learning on her own, she enjoys being amongst other learners and believes that knowledge sharing is a powerful tool that allows for the coming up of innovative, inclusive and appropriate solutions to our contextual challenges.
Explore Machine Learning:
Led by Zakia Mustafa & Lydia Gathoni this session will offer foundastional concepts into machine learning. The session will be available here from 9:30 am.
Zakia Mustafa is a Data Scientist based in Nairobi, Kenya. She is interested in using Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence to solve problems. She is also passionate about Technology and how it can be used to transform the African continent. Zakia is currently working on projects in the areas of Computer Vision and Reinforcement Learning, contributing to open source projects and mentoring people who are getting into Data Science. Previously, she worked on machine learning and IOT projects.
Lydia Gathoni is a Data Scientist and Machine Learning Engineer focused on using data to make predictive models and solve problems. She is a graduate of Kabarak University with a Bsc. in Computer Science majoring in Software Engineering. She has over 4 years of experience in software development where she has worked on several projects and developed systems in various fields and websites. She is passionate about what she does and is driven to deliver innovative solutions that fit the needs of organizations, institutions and society at large.
Explore Building Products that Scale.
Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science offer us an excellengt opportunity to innovate for the future of work. Join Kenneth M Kinyanjui as he facilitates a session on how to build products that scale. The session will begin at 2:30 pm and will be available here.
Kenneth is Software Engineer & Product Manager who can’t get away from solving problems in Emerging Markets. Starting off his career as an independent consultant for companies in Nairobi, San Francisco, London and Seoul he quickly developed into both a Cloud Architect and Infrastructure Engineer. With this new found knowledge and doing this in the luxury of his dorm room, he focused on 2 things. Empowering the community and becoming an entrepreneur. The past 6 years, Kenneth has spent time seeding back to the Sub-Saharan Startup and Technology ecosystem through mentorship, speaking at events , building communities and facilitating workshops. On the other end co-founding 2 companies. WeCashUp (Fintech) based in Marseille, France and Faidika Technologies (Technology Consulting ) based in Kenya.
PS: To access the sessions, Kindly click on the respective links on Saturday at the listed times. This short survey will help us offer support towards this Saturday’s event, please take a minute to fill it.
One last thing, we are building a community organizers team to help co-ordinate community events, be sure to ping me (muthoniwanyoike@gmail.com) in case you are interested & haven’t done so yet.
We can’t wait to see you on Saturday!
Stay safe.
