The Nigerian startup selected to build the country’s first AI, Awarri, has engaged over 500 fellows of the federal government’s 3 Million Technical Talent program as data collectors in building the Large Language Multilingual Model.
The Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani, disclosed this on Wednesday, reiterating the government’s commitment to creating more jobs for Nigerians in the tech space.
“I’m glad to see the growth of the Awarri team since its launch in November 2023 to 120 staff, with an additional engagement of over 500 fellows from our 3MTTNigeria programme as data collectors, as they build Nigeria’s first Large Language Multilingual Model.
“Looking forward to seeing more companies in the space as we slowly but surely build a technology workforce that will contribute to global AI development,” the Minister stated in a post on X Wednesday night.
According to the Minister, Awarri kicked off operations with 100 AI jobs in Ikorodu in November last year. He described the startup as a full-stack offering that ranges from data gathering to model creation and AI application development.
Nigeria’s AI Model
Tijani at the end of a 4-day AI workshop held in Abuja in April announced the launch of Nigeria’s first Multilingual Large Language Model (LLM).
According to him, the AI tool was launched through a partnership between a Nigerian AI company, Awarritech, a global tech company, DataDotOrg, the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), and the National Centre for AI and Robotics (NCAIR).
“The LLM will be trained in 5 low resource languages and accented English to ensure stronger language representation in existing datasets for the development of Artificial Intelligence solutions. The project will also be supported by over 7,000 fellows from the 3MTT Nigeria program,” the Minister stated.
What you should know
As part of the ongoing technical skills training, the government has also promised to facilitate jobs for the 3MTT fellows in line with President Tinubu’s promise of creating a million tech jobs within the first two years of his administration.
While announcing the selection of fellows for the second cohort of the program recently, the Communications Minister disclosed that a significant number of fellows in the first cohort of the program were being placed into jobs as interns all over the country.
According to Tijani, the 3MTT program is a critical part of the Renewed Hope agenda, and is aimed at building Nigeria’s technical talent backbone to power its digital economy and position Nigeria as a net talent exporter.
The program started with 30,000 Nigerians, representing 1% of the 3 million target, while the 270,000 selected for the second cohort brings the number to 10%. To achieve the program’s target,
Tijani said the different phases will be executed based on the framework co-created with key stakeholders across government agencies, training providers, educational institutions, development agencies, and the private sector.