There is an urgent need to build capacity of the institutions of higher learning to support training of generative artificial intelligence and edge computing to increase Kenya’s skills pool needed by local enterprises.
According to chief information officers speaking during the unveiling of 16th CIO 100 conference and awards scheduled for this month, collaboration with the private sector in the development of a curriculum will ensure there is enough genAI talent needed by the local enterprises to drive growth of the local economy.
“There really needs to be a deliberate effort to make sure that this collaboration is very practical and the private sector is able to give information to people who are building a curriculum to learning institutions right from primary level to secondary level to university level to make sure that we really prepare an environment where they are equipped and the know what is out there in the industry,” said Gilbert Mutai, Car and General Head of IT.
Increased skills pool is backed to ensure small and medium enterprises increase their local sourcing of emerging technology in order to reduce costs associated with procuring the technologies from companies abroad.
Adoption of AI is being backed to help companies mitigate fraud especially in the financial sector and improve production process for manufacturers.
“The fraudsters out there are also using AI so you have to be ahead of them. You must also adapt and use artificial intelligence in your mitigation strategies. But again it’s not just using technology, it’s about understanding your insider threats because some of these guys work with people inside so it’s a multifaceted approach that we must adopt and the use of AI helps us in doing that,” said Charles Washika, Co-operative Bank Director ICT and Innovation.
The 16th edition of CIO100 Awards and Symposium is set to bring together IT leaders from across the continent with discussions revolving around emerging technologies.
According to dx5 Director Andrew Karanja this year’s event will focus on African solutions bringing participants from various countries.
“We have three days of interesting conversations discussing trends. For example we are talking AI, emerging technologies, edge computing. All these topics are topics which affect business and are now being applied in the enterprise environment,” he added.
The three-day event scheduled for 20th and 22nd this month will also see the awarding of the chief information of the year.
