Nigerian non-profit organisation GIEVA wins $250k international AI award

The Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy has today announced Global Integrated Education Volunteers Association (GIEVA) as one of the five awardees of the Generative AI Skills Challenge, a global grant from data.org and Microsoft to explore, develop and implement ways for organisations to train, upskill and reskill the workforce to use generative artificial intelligence (AI).

GIEVA, a youth-focused non-governmental organisation committed to creating a sustainable future through education, cultural exchange, and collaborative partnership, will receive $250,000 to train professionals with the skills necessary to successfully utilise generative AI in an equitable and interdisciplinary way.

The ministry is also providing additional funding and support to GIEVA to further encourage and drive innovation in AI training skills.

GIEVA will train and upskill women entrepreneurs in Northern Nigeria on the use of generative AI capabilities to create livelihoods within the digital economy. They will also build an AI-based platform for women-led businesses to create digital assets and increase sales including creating compelling online product profiles and sales assets optimised for sharing over digital media.

From a pool of about 600 applicants from across 93 countries, GIEVA was selected as a powerful locally-driven solution with the potential to scale not only across communities and countries—but globally.

Awardees were evaluated in a rigorous multi-step process by a team of judges and reviewers around the world who are leaders in the fields of education, data science, and technology.

"Generative AI presents meaningful opportunities for tackling global challenges and maximising sustainability and scalability in the process, as long as equity and local communities are at the centre of design and decision making," said the Minister of Communications, Innovation and Digital Economy, Dr. Bosun Tijani.

According to Tijani, GIEVA is an exemplar of powerful localised approach to advance women entrepreneurs in Northern Nigeria.

In addition to financial support, awardees will receive access to technical resources, technical guidance from Microsoft AI experts, including Microsoft's AI for Good Lab, and data training. This holistic support will strengthen the awardees' programmatic approach, advance their organisational maturity and plan for the sustainability of their solutions.

"Generative AI holds great promise for skilling our national workforce. Lessons learned with GIEVA will advance entrepreneurial women here in Nigeria and scale to other countries and contexts," said Dr Uyi Stewart, Chief Data and Technology Officer of data.org.

The Generative AI Skills Challenge advances data.org's commitment to train one million purpose-driven data practitioners by 2032. Each awardee has committed to sharing or open sourcing their work so other organisations can replicate and scale their solutions.

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