IndabaX 2019: Growing the Footprint of African Machine Learning

The 2019 IndabaX meetings will take place in 27 countries across our African continent, during the months of March to May. We are proud to enable these communities and future leaders. African machine learning is strong and thriving.

An IndabaX is a locally-organised, one-day Indaba (meeting) that helps spread knowledge and build capacity in machine learning, and which is held in countries across our African continent. The IndabaX is a means with which to experiment with the ways in which we strengthen African machine learning and its local communities, allowing more people to contribute to the conversation around machine learning and artificial intelligence.

​​The first series of IndabaX events was held in 13 countries over two weeks at the beginning of April 2018, building a core network of technical hubs, and uncovering and celebrating researchers and machine learning work taking place across the continent. It matters greatly, and as a result of the IndabaX 2018 events, that there is now a strong machine learning community in Sudan and Swaziland where there was previously none; that six different groups in Uganda came together to create the IndabaXUganda meeting; that we are able to form stronger ties with the community of Women in Machine Learning and Data Science in Kenya; and that the strong machine learning community in South Africa, which we played a role in initially strengthening, is further strengthened.

We are now excited to announce that the IndabaX 2019 has grown to include 27 countries! This represents half of the continent! In each of these countries we now find passionate and engaged communities: African machine learning is now exploding in every part of the continent.

Each of these IndabaX events is partnered with a local university, and is now working to provide an exciting programme tailored to the needs of their local community. They have each committed to furthering the principles of the Indaba in spreading knowledge, growing communities, and championing diversity. Each country will have their own application process; please see the website to find details of an IndabaX closest to you.

We have been able to provide each event with modest funding (with amounts of up to R25,000/$2,000). The events range from an estimated 50 attendees per events, up to some of the larger ones which may exceed 300. We hope that with additional support in the future we will be able to grow these further, and extend their reach to the remaining countries.

The IndabaX 2019 host countries are (see website for specific dates):

• Algeria
• Botswana
• Burkina Faso
• Burundi
• Cameroon
• Democratic Republic of the Congo
• Egypt
• Ethiopia
• Ghana

• The Gambia
• Kenya
• Lesotho
• Malawi
• Morocco
• Namibia
• Nigeria
• Rwanda
• Senegal

• Somalia
• South Africa
• Sudan
• Swaziland
• Tanzania
• Tunisia
• Uganda
• Zambia
• Zimbabwe​

We cannot wait to see what these 26 groups produce and to learn from their challenges, as we continue to deepen our programmes and efforts to Strengthening African machine learning -- the mission of the Deep Learning Indaba.  

If you are able to support the growth of African machine learning and the Indaba’s mission, through funding or in other ways, please get in touch.