Announcing Radiant Earth’s Online Course on Machine Learning for Earth Observation

Designed to strengthen practitioners’ local capacity and skills in support of creating impactful machine learning applications

We have the pleasure of introducing the online Machine Learning for Earth Observations (ML4EO) course.

ML4EO technologies present a game-changing opportunity to identify and address unique, complex, and emerging challenges at local, regional, and global scales more accurately and more quickly. The plethora of EO data, combined with ML techniques, can help humanity see, understand, and respond more effectively to a rapidly changing world. But data scientists specializing in ML for EO are underrepresented, especially in Africa. Therefore, in May, we partnered with the Ugandan AI and data science research group at Makerere University to train a community of African regional experts collaborating on solutions to the continent’s needs and problems using ML4EO technologies.

Forty participants from Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa, and Uganda attended a 2-week training. Participants were selected among applicants who had some introductory knowledge of ML and Python programming and were able to train five other people within their community. The bootcamp was sponsored by a grant from the GIZ FAIR Forward program to Radiant Earth Foundation. The “FAIR Forward — Artificial Intelligence for all” initiative promotes a more open, inclusive, and sustainable approach to AI on an international level. It is implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ).

Yayra de Souza, one of the participants from Ghana, shares what the training meant for him:

The ML4EO course is based on the lectures and exercises developed for this bootcamp. It will be made available on Atingi, a digital learning platform developed within the Global Project “Africa Cloud” framework, implemented by GIZ.

The course materials on Atingi will be active by the end of July, and participants can receive an open badge certificate. We will announce the course on our social channels once the course link becomes active. In the meantime, if you want to get a head start, explore the lectures and other materials online.