Computing & IS

Open Access AI Training Data & Courses

Published

6 years ago

October 13, 2020

Mark Wamai

Open and unbiased AI training data for AI practitioners in Africa on the atingi platform.

The German Development Cooperation initiative “FAIR Forward – Artificial Intelligence for All” strives for a more open, inclusive and sustainable approach to AI on an international level. To achieve this, the initiative is working together with five partner countries: Ghana, Rwanda, South Africa, Uganda and India. The three main goals are (1) to strengthen local technical know-how on AI, (2) to remove entry barriers to AI and to increase access to training data and AI technologies for local innovation, and (3) to develop policy frameworks for ethical AI.

Looking for open access AI training data to build your first language model or image recognition model for the African Context? Check out our series of e-Learning modules on Open and unbiased AI training data for AI practitioners in Africa on the atingi platform.

About atingi

Atingi is a digital learning platform developed within the framework of the Global Project “Africa Cloud”, implemented by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development. The Smart Africa Secretariat, an alliance of 29 African digital ministries, is the most important strategic partner for project implementation.

Background

In many African countries, providing access to learning content and lifelong learning opportunities remains a challenge. Large parts of the population cannot benefit from existing educational offers due to geographical remoteness and a lack of financial resources. Marginalized groups such as girls and women as well as populations living in rural areas are particularly affected by restrained access to education. As a result, they often lack the required competences for finding employment in local labour markets.

The Africa Cloud global project aims to reach young people through innovative e-learning offers. Educational contents are developed locally and geared towards improving vocational training and employability for the jobs of the future. The Africa Cloud teams up with partners from political, economy and civil society sector such as the „Make-IT” Initiative, German Siemens Stiftung and the Green Innovation Centres for the Agriculture and Food Sector (GIC).

The project starts in Africa and will be successively extended to other world regions.

To enroll in the first module of the course “How to access open voice training data: Mozilla’s Common Voice Platform”, visit atingi.org.

Have any Questions?

Please send an email to: atingi@giz.de

Related Topics:AI atingi Data open courseware

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Computing & IS

Bridging Mental Health Service Gap in Africa using AI

Published

3 weeks ago

June 5, 2026

Mak Editor

Natural Language Processing (NLP) for Mental Health Service Improvement in Africa. Makerere University Centre for Artificial Intelligence (Mak-AI), Kampala Uganda, East Africa.

How can AI help bridge the mental health service gap in Africa?

Through this project, teams from Uganda and Tanzania implemented AI-powered call center solutions at national mental health hospitals, leveraging Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to analyze conversations in local languages and generate insights that support better service delivery.

Some of the key achievements include:

Developing ASR models for Ugandan-accented English and Luganda mental health recordings
Assessing the quality of mental health conversations
Detecting mental health topics from speech recordings
Generating escalations and decision-support insights for healthcare practitioners

The project also reinforced important lessons: local-language AI improves accessibility, user-centered design builds trust, and privacy and ethics must remain at the center of AI-driven healthcare innovation.

As Africa continues to embrace digital health solutions, initiatives like these demonstrate the potential of AI to strengthen mental healthcare systems and improve access to quality care for underserved communities.

View related projects

Computing & IS

CoCIS CIPSD Short Courses Jul-Sept 2026

Published

4 weeks ago

May 29, 2026

Mak Editor

A male student studies on his laptop in the College of Computing and Information Sciences (CoCIS), Block B, Makerere University, Kampala Uganda.

Makerere University College of Computing and Information Sciences (CoCIS) is the main ICT Training, Research and Consultancy Centre in Makerere University. The College has six Academic departments comprising of the Department of Computer Science, Department of Networks, Department of Information Technology, Department of Information Systems, Department of Library and Information Sciences, and the Department of Records and Archives management.

In addition to the mainstream degree programmes, CoCIS has a specialized Center for Innovations and Professional Skills Development (CIPSD) which delivers state-of-art training in ICT e.g. the Cisco Networking Academy for Cisco related courses, the Microsoft IT Academy Program for Microsoft related courses, International Computer Driving License course, Oracle Certified Training center for Oracle, Linux and Unix Training center. CIPSD also offers Machine Learning, Big Data Analytics, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Ethical Hacking as online courses. The College is an authorized Testing center, operating under PearsonVUE and Kryterion. Listed in the table (see downloads below) are the courses currently offered at the Center with their next start dates, duration, and cost.

All courses are at affordable fees catering for Students, Vacists, Professionals and
Anyone who wants to start a career in ICT or polish his/her ICT skills.

Register here: https://forms.gle/eTVwcAfBGXaVLL9b7

Contact Information

E-mail: psd.cis@mak.ac.ug
Tel: +256 752 779964 | +256 701 806656 | +256 752 373023
URL: https://cocis.mak.ac.ug/cipsd/

Makerere-CoCIS-CIPSD-Advert-Jul-Aug-Sept-2026-Intake-Dates Download

Computing & IS

CoCIS CIPSD Short Courses for Vacists, Students and Professionals

Published

1 month ago

May 19, 2026

Mak Editor

Block B of the College of Computing and Information Sciences (CoCIS), Makerere University, Kampala Uganda.

Click link below for start dates and to register:

https://forms.gle/eTVwcAfBGXaVLL9b7

All courses are at affordable fees catering for Students, Vacists, Professionals and
Anyone who wants to start a career in ICT or polish his/her ICT skills.