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Google PhD Fellowships 2025 |
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The Centre for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (DSAIL) is thrilled to announce that our Junior Research Fellow, Lorna Mugambi, has been named a recipient of the prestigious 2025 Global Google PhD Fellowship in Health Research! |
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Lorna is a doctoral student in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Dedan Kimathi University of Technology, supervised by Professor Ciira wa Maina. |
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Lorna's research, conducted in collaboration with paediatric cardiologist Professor Liesl Zühlke, focuses on addressing the burden of Rheumatic Heart Disease (RHD) in Africa. Her work uses advanced AI techniques, including Vision-Language Models (VLMs) and Self-Supervised Learning (SSL), to develop scalable, low-cost diagnostic tools for RHD. |
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These fellowships recognize outstanding graduate students who are conducting exceptional and innovative research in computer science and related fields, with a focus on influencing the future of technology. |
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This program provides vital direct financial support for Lorna’s PhD pursuits and connects her with a dedicated Google Research Mentor, reinforcing Google’s commitment to nurturing the academic community. |
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We are incredibly proud of Lorna's achievement and look forward to the continued success and impact of her research. |
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Machine Learning Foundations Course |
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September marked the completion of an intensive Machine Learning Foundations course led by Prof. Neil Lawrence. Over four weeks, participants from DSAIL met three times per week to build a strong understanding of machine learning fundamentals, advancing from theoretical concepts to practical implementation and a final mini-hackathon. |
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Throughout the program, participants demonstrated collaboration and dedication, informally referring to themselves as the “Machine Learning Football Club (MLFC)” to reflect the team spirit. The course fostered both technical competence and a supportive learning environment. |
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With the training concluded, participants are now prepared to apply their skills in data science, machine learning, and artificial intelligence to address real-world challenges. We extend our sincere congratulations to all participants and express our appreciation to the instructional team for their commitment and guidance. |
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All materials and winning projects are available online. Please visit to check out the season’s highlights: |
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View the Winning Projects here. |
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Access the Lectures here. |
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Review the Practicals here. |
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Developing AI-based biodiversity solutions in Kenya |
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Prof Ciira Maina recently delivered an AI for Good webinar titled 'Developing AI-based biodiversity solutions in Kenya’ as part of the ITU AI for Good Discovery series. In it he described efforts at DSAIL to develop, deploy and evaluate AI based approaches to biodiversity monitoring and conservation. Applications ranging from bioacoustic data collection and model training for the Mt Kenya ecosystem, camera trap data analysis for endangered species monitoring as well as reforestation monitoring were presented. You can watch a replay of the webinar here. |
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Deep Learning Indaba 2025 |
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Deep Learning Indaba 2025 gathered the continent’s AI community together at the University of Rwanda in Kigali from 17th to 22nd August. Under the theme Urunana – Hand in Hand for AI in Africa, inspired by the Kinyarwanda word Urunana meaning holding hands together, the event celebrated unity and collaboration. For a week, researchers, students, and innovators connected through inspiring keynotes, hands-on coding, mentorship, and workshops on NLP, healthcare AI, and responsible innovation. |
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This was a proud moment and a chance to share our work, receive feedback, and connect with other researchers in Africa. |
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From 2–4 October 2025, Cape Town hosted the AI4D (Artificial Intelligence for Development) Partners Meeting, supported by IDRC and UK International Development. The gathering brought together researchers and innovators across Africa to share progress and showcase AI4D-supported projects. Clinton presented DSAIL-Orthopedia, a tool for lower-limb assessment in orthopedic care, receiving valuable feedback from peers. Discussions focused on scaling innovations—exploring what drives success and how to translate research into real-world impact. |
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ACVSS 2025: 10 Days of Computer Vision and AI |
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From July 13 to 23, 2025, the African Computer Vision Summer School (ACVSS) brought together some of the sharpest minds in AI, robotics, and computer vision for ten days of learning, collaboration, and reflection. Hosted at the Africa Institute of Mathematical Sciences, the event blended technical rigor with creative inquiry, asking not only how we build intelligent systems, but why. |
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The lectures were led by world-renowned researchers including Martin R. Oswald, Anurag Arnab, Sara Beery, Daniel Cremers, Hazel Doughty, Vicky Kalogeiton, Vincent Sitzmann, and Desmond Elliott. From RANSAC to diffusion models, from multimodal learning to 3D reconstruction, the sessions explored how perception, geometry, and generative intelligence shape modern AI. |
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Beyond theory, the program ventured into the world, literally. Attendees visited Nyandungu Eco Park for a field session on bird ecology, linking Sara Beery’s work on environmental AI to real ecosystems. A tour of Zipline Rwanda showcased robotics in action, where drones deliver medical supplies across challenging terrain, proving that AI can save lives, not just compute loss functions. |
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Keynotes by Prof. Ciira wa Maina, Timnit Gebru, and Miceli M. grounded the excitement with perspective, reminding participants that Africa’s AI renaissance must be ethical, self-determined, and inclusive. |
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The event culminated in a high-energy hackathon, where David’s team Dynamic Scene Understanding for Safe Crossing clinched 1st place. Their project used computer vision and multimodal AI to help robots interpret road scenes, merging perception and safety in real-time. |
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ACVSS 2025 was more than a summer school—it was a vision of AI as both art and instrument, science and story. The participants left Kigali with new tools, new collaborators, and a renewed sense of purpose: to build machines that see the world, but also understand their place within it. |
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From September 23rd to 24th, James, an undergraduate research assistant at DSAIL, had the incredible opportunity to attend the GeoSK Symposium held at the RCMRD (Regional Center for Mapping of Resources for Development) complex in Kasarani. Organized by the Geospatial Society of Kenya, the event brought together top geospatial professionals, innovators, and students to explore the latest advancements transforming the geospatial industry. |
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James presented a project under the AI and Blockchain category, where he developed an AI + Blockchain + GIS Intelligent Agricultural Marketing System with the goal of helping farmers access real-time market price predictions, securely connect with buyers, and make location-based decisions using geospatial data. He secured 2nd place in the competition. |
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The symposium was a transformational learning experience with conversations on the use of AI and geospatial technology to solve real-world problems. One of the major highlights was learning how cities are now being digitally replicated using ArcGIS CityEngine to support smarter urban planning and disaster preparedness. The discussion around the future of African smart cities was mind-blowing. |
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Beyond the presentations, IBM hosted a powerful workshop on “AI for Good”, where one key takeaway stood out: AI is only as good as the quality of your input and if harm occurs, the user is accountable, not the AI. |
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The AfriLang AI Conference took place on 10th October 2025 at Four Points by Sheraton, Kampala, Uganda. The event brought together researchers and language technology experts to discuss the role of AI in advancing African languages. A key highlight was the launch of Sunflower by Sunbird AI, a powerful Large Language Model (LLM) that understands and generates text in over 31 Ugandan languages. |
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Keynotes from different speakers Dr. John Quinn, Ms Babra Babweteera, Dr. Ernest Mwebaze and Prof. Vukosi Marivate offered valuable insights on the need for compressing language models to run efficiently on local devices, importance of language preservation, fine-tuning large language models and the need to collect local language data to ensure African voices are represented in the AI space. |
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Dr. Joseph Muguro took part in an interactive panel discussion that focused on how AI and language technologies can preserve languages, ease communication, bridge language barriers and ethical practices in data collection. |
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Mary, a DSAIL research intern, also had an opportunity to present her ongoing project on bridging the language gap through machine translation, demonstrating how AI can break down language barriers and give greater voice to African languages. |
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The team also had the opportunity to visit Sunbird AI and Makerere AI Lab, where they participated in an insightful session on machine translation, Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) development, data preprocessing particularly tokenization for the Kikuyu language which has special characters and human evaluation methodologies as best practices for assessing models through the involvement of language experts and linguists. |
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The session also covered data collection techniques, particularly for voice data, emphasizing the importance of collecting voice data with a maximum duration of 30 seconds to facilitate more efficient ASR model training. |
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Recently, we had the pleasure of hosting Kofi Yeboah from Mozilla Foundation who visited us to discuss solutions to the compute challenges faced by several AI labs in Africa. |
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Dr. David Kimiti and Redempta Njeri from the Grevy's Zebra Trust together with Lizbeth Mate from Marwell Wildlife visited us to learn about our AI applications to environmental conservation. |
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It was great catching up 😊. |
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