Generative AI for Africa Hackathon Finalists Project Underway in Addis Ababa

Addis Ababa, November 11/2023 (ENA): The Generative Artificial Intelligence for Africa Hackathon's finalists project expo opened at Abrehot Library in Addis Ababa today.

Africa Silicon Valley (A2SV) Founder and CEO, Emne Varol said the project will end tomorrow with awards to winner projects, out of  the 9 finalists.

“These projects have gone through a selection period in the last three months; and out of 3,700 students from 47 African countries, we have the 9 finalists here. Of these 3 are Ethiopian projects,” he added.

Such competitions will offer university and high school students opportunity to develop digital solutions for the continent's most serious issues.

“We are in the age of AI, and we have the internet, computers and cell phones. We don't have an excuse for Africa to miss the AI era. I really hope, with this competition we bring attention to this important technology in the whole continent. I believe these projects are going to be the seeds of innovation that are spreading all over the continent and this starts from Ethiopia,” the  founder and CEO said.

 

One of the finalists, Christian Nebot from Tunisia said, “This is a great opportunity for us to express what we know, and also take part in the competition. AI is a recent technology that must be exploited by Africa, and we have all the potential to do that.” 

 Nebot noted that his team believes that the main problem of focus in Africa should be on education.

“Our project is an e-learning platform that enhances education, but for the autistic students. We have seen that Africa has the highest number of autistic students in the world, but has less solutions to handle the problem. We are here to present a problem, a project that will help to enhance learning for autistic students,” he said.

 

The other finalist, Melek Messoussi came with her team with the project HealthHub, a cutting platform where powerful AI meets the complex realm of brain tumors.

“We created this platform to help the medical history progress in neuro-science, progress in this specific field like in brains to help them understand the brain and learn about the brain, detect tumors, visualize the brain, monitor the progress of the tumors,  among others.” 

The Ethiopian female finalist, Abigiya Getachew's project focused on transforming education through Artificial Intellegence.

 

“Our project focuses on transforming education in Africa through AI-powered solutions, expanding access, personalized learning and fostering academic achievements for students.” 

Africa Hackathon will award about 30,000 USD to all the winners, it was learned.