More than 1000 students from 126 universities across Africa have participated in the UmojaHack Africa 2021 virtual machine learning hackathon. The hackathon organized by Zindi took place on the weekend of 27-28 March.
1150 Students from 21 African countries joined the event participating in three different machine learning challenges. They represent Algeria, Benin, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Egypt, Ethiopia, Ghana, Guinea, Kenya, Malawi, Morocco, Nigeria, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, Tunisia, Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Getting ready for the hack @Zindiafrica @ChinhoyiCUT @KamfesKaya @DataScienceZim @DonC263 #UmojaHackAfrica #UHA2021 #ZindHack pic.twitter.com/XcEjB0EBfh
— Leo 🦁 (@LeoTDzingirai) March 27, 2021
Data science students from 9 African countries won a total competition price of more than $10000 USD in prizes. 8500 submissions were made to solve three real-world machine learning challenges on Zindi.
A financial resilience prediction challenge, a logistics challenge for African B2B service provider Sendy, and a computational biology challenge using the DeepChain™ platform developed by InstaDeep.
The winning solutions developed by Zindi data science users will be shared with these organisations and deployed in real-world applications.
#UmojaHackAfrica2021 #BuildingAITogether #UHA2021 @dsn_ui @ZindiAfrica @DataScienceNIG @TensorflowIB @nvidia https://t.co/ExwmIckzEj pic.twitter.com/zuu3UWWwjr
— sanusi waris (@sanusi_waris) March 27, 2021
Winning words
In winning second place in the Sendy Delivery Rider Response Challenge, Tony Mipawa, a data science student from the University of Dodoma, Tanzania, epitomised the spirit of Zindi and of UmojaHack. A year ago, Tony was a data science novice until he participated in Zindi’s first-ever Mentorship Programme in 2020. He has grown in leaps and bounds since then. As evidenced by his prize-winning submission in this hackathon, less than a year later.
“I’m very happy with the outcome,” Tony said at the awards ceremony. “My advice is, whenever there is an opportunity to learn, you should take it. Learning is all about passion; whenever there is an opportunity to learn, put your whole effort into it, do it well. Try to learn from anyone you meet. I would like to thank Zindi for what that mentorship programme gave me.”
University of Ghana students on the#UmojaHackAfrica #UHA2021 #ZindiHack pic.twitter.com/20zr5JmlKV
— John Bagiliko (@myzta_tee) March 27, 2021
UmojaHack Africa Global support
Some of the leading names in the global and African tech, AI and financial sectors made UmojaHack Africa 2021 possible. These include InstaDeep, Standard Bank Group, Microsoft, DeepMind, NVIDIA, and Old Mutual. They were integral in making the event a success. By offering financial and professional development prizes, contributing their expertise and excitement to the event, and supporting UmojaHack Africa 2021 through their own channels.
“We are incredibly excited about this event spanning over 100 African universities and helping thousands of African students leverage their data science and AI skills to solve African problems,” says Chris Lwanga, Principal Director for Software Partnerships at Microsoft. “At Microsoft, we believe in empowering every organisation and person to do more.”
“Standard Bank is deeply invested in funding and implementing critical data science skills development programmes, such as Zindi’s UmojaHack Africa 2021 hackathon, to position Africa as a serious competitor in the world’s rapidly emerging data-driven sector,” says Adrian Vermooten, Chief Innovation Officer, Standard Bank Group.
“We are delighted to support UmojaHack Africa again, an incredible initiative close to our hearts. Seeing students from more than 120 universities come together to collaborate on real-world machine learning challenges is truly inspiring,” says Karim Beguir, Co-Founder and CEO of InstaDeep. “This is, in our opinion, the best way to accelerate AI growth on the continent. Hackathons like UmojaHack bring us one step closer to achieving InstaDeep’s mission: building an AI-first world that benefits everyone.”
According to Celina Lee, CEO of Zindi, “UmojaHack Africa has proven to be a game-changing event, especially when so many young people have been impacted by the global pandemic. This is a chance for students from across the continent to come together to learn, compete, and have fun. UmojaHack is about building skills, creating new machine learning applications to solve problems that really matter while forging new connections among the students as well as with industry. We are incredibly excited to see what the students come up with in just one weekend.”
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