NVIDIA Features Tools, Training and Education for African Developers 

NVIDIA Features Tools, Training and Education for African Developers at AI Expo Africa 2021 ONLINE

Developers don’t just come from the United States — they hail from Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal and beyond. Africa is home to close to 1 million developers who are driving technology innovation through regional, local, and grassroots communities. NVIDIA is focused on supporting these developer ecosystems in emerging markets and opening access for communities to solve pressing regional problems with AI.

NVIDIA is working with communities across Africa to engage with on the leading edge of AI and other groundbreaking technologies. These technologies affect everyone, and to ensure all voices are heard, we’ve designed a program that seeks to inspire, influence, and impact developers from emerging countries.

NVIDIA offers developers a range of tools, from software development kits (SDKs) for conversational AI and ray tracing, to hands-on courses from the NVIDIA Deep Learning Institute (DLI). They’re available to all members of the NVIDIA Developer Program, a free-to-join global community of over 2.5 million technology innovators who are revolutionizing industries through accelerated computing.

The DLI curriculum encompases a comprehensive learning experience covering a wide range of important topics in AI, data science and accelerated computing. SDKs are a key component that can make or break an application’s performance. Dozens of new and updated kits for high performance computing, computer vision, data science, conversational AI, recommender systems and real-time graphics are available so developers in every market can meet virtually any challenge.

NVIDIA is also engaging developers, researchers and data scientists through NVIDIA Inception, a program designed to nurture startups revolutionizing industries with advancements in AI and data sciences. NVIDIA Inception helps startups during critical stages of product development, prototyping and deployment. Every NVIDIA Inception member gets a custom set of ongoing benefits, such as DLI credits, marketing support, and technology assistance, which provides startups with the fundamental tools to help them grow.

We’re still growing our emerging markets initiatives to better connect with developers worldwide. Here are the areas that we’re working toward:

Remove Barriers to Access

Digitization has boosted the growth trajectory for African developers, researchers and startups. Where a previous barrier lay in lack of access now that the world has moved online so has the knowledge.

The ability to attend more conferences around the globe means more information shared between experts. Shared world-class expertise is key to creating competitive companies, and it’s a way developers can keep on top of development trends, keep their skills up to date and, fundamentally, keep them relevant.

One avenue to democratizing compute is the cloud, especially for startups and developers who want to learn. By using cloud-based computing services, they’re able to access the type of compute power they need, without having to actually have the hardware on hand.

Embrace Regional Differences, and Spotlighting Success and Challenge

Developers across the globe will all face different challenges. When sharing knowledge it’s important to cater to those global perspectives, particularly at technology conferences. Ensuring there are diverse panels, speakers and languages for emerging markets can contribute to significant growth and development across regions.

Community opportunities like this don’t have to be developed by larger corporations. Smaller companies and leading startups are just as important to support and facilitate growth regionally, whether it’s through conference sponsorships, talks, workshops or mentoring for other startups.

This means the opportunity for practicing communities to develop. Ideas can be shared within these groups, and people from various backgrounds and industries can come together to solve problems. Challenges being faced in the East might have already been solved in the West, or vice versa, and these different experiences and learnings can be shared and built upon. It’s these communities in Africa that are driving growth and innovation in technology.

Foster Opportunities to Learn and Connect, by Thinking Outside the Box

Developers themselves are investing time and effort into AI in Africa, and local challenges are being solved by local developers.

Bigger companies can and are also investing into Africa to develop the best talents in the continent. With Accelerator and Incubator programs, they can work with brand new startups, and the startups who are supporting the development of communities and ecosystems. It’s important that larger organizations learn from the African AI ecosystem by tapping into these communities, bringing in diverse teams to advise on their own policies.

New Ways to Knowledge

Access to knowledge is key to the success, growth and development of AI in Africa, and the AI ecosystem is well on the way to solving that problem. By thinking outside of the box, the continent has carved a new path for themselves, and now the continent is well on their way to becoming the future leaders of AI.

Joining the NVIDIA Developer Program and applying for NVIDIA Inception is easy, check it out today.