Datamaker, a global data labelling platform for artificial intelligence (AI) yesterday held a graduation ceremony for the first batch of 27 labelling trainees in Accra.
It was attended by Mr Lim Jung-Taek, the Korean Ambassador to Ghana, Mr Moo Heon Kong- Country Director of Korea International Co-operation Agency (KOICA) Ghana Office, and Mr Kwame Nsiah Asante, Head of Estate Enclave Development, Free Zones Authority.
The graduands, made up of 20 males and seven females were trained for free under a KOICA partnership with Datamaker.
Under the five-year project the two institutions would implement the “Training AI data labelling workforce to create non-contact jobs through decent ICT education programmes in Ghana.”
In his remarks, Mr Jung-Taek reminded the trainees that they are the future leaders and driving force of innovation and sustainable development of Ghana and urged them to utilise the knowledge they obtained to develop innovative ideas for the development of Ghana.
He said KOICA’s Inclusive Business Solution (IBS) Programme had been leading the partnership with Korean enterprises in order to contribute to developing country’s economic, social and environmental development.
Mr Jung-Taek noted that despite Ghana’s high education rate, youth unemployment and ICT illiteracy remain quite high.
Mr Jung-Taek said as part of efforts to help bridge the unemployment gap and create jobs for the marginalised people in Ghana, there was a proposal to set up an ICT and data labelling education to give opportunity to the teeming youth to increase their employability.
He stated that Ghana’s vision to build a robust infrastructure to facilitate the operations of tech companies, viz-a-viz Korea’s comparative advantage and the growing demand for ICT utilisation in Ghana could enhance Ghana’s research and ICT capabilities to promote growth for both Korea and Ghana.
Through this programme, Mr Jung-Taek said he was optimistic that ICT literacy among the Ghanaian youth could be very much improved to provide career growth and development opportunities for trainees.
“It will also offer employable skills to the youth in the technology space and young people can be trained as professional data labellers in Ghana to advance the country’s AI industry and help reduce unemployment, Mr Jung-Taek said.
The Korean Ambassador said he was confident that Datamaker aside the training would also offer or create opportunities to hire some of the trainees to work on projects coming from Korea so they can earn some income.
Dr Jamal-DeenAbdulai, Head, Department of Computer Science University of Ghana, said data labelling is one of the crucial phases and most fundamental activities in AI and Machine Learning Tasks.
He said AI and Machine Learning were deriving the future of the 21st century and that the Department of Computer Science was “positioning itself towards this challenging future by establishing new programmes and actively recruiting faculty to teach and research into this new frontier of technology.”
As an academic unit, Dr Abdullai said the department collaborates with most tech giants in the world including Google, Microsoft, IBM as well as local Ghanaian companies, government agencies in areas of software application provisioning and students’ internship and placements to improve teaching, learning and research.
DrAbdullai said the department was also collaborating with Datamaker, adding that the relationship with Datamaker was a special one to the extent that, Datamaker shall be the first local company to have signed an MoU with the Department of Computer Science, University of Ghana for the purposes of supporting teaching, learning, research and students’ engagements.
Mr James Cha, Datamaker Managing Director, said although Datamaker was established in 2018, it had grown rapidly because of the increasing global demand for AI.
He said Datamaker’s competitiveness as a company comes from having its data labs in Ghana.
Mr Cha said: “through KOICA’s support we have been a company impacting the Ghanaian society in creating jobs and training for the youth of this nation in a scale larger than before.”
BY MALIK SULLEMANA
