200 youths are expected to participate in a Youth Bootcamp on Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Robotics for Sustainable Development set for Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe from 22-23 February 2020.
Organised by the UNESCO Regional Office for Southern Africa (ROSA) in partnership with Zimbabwe’s Ministry of Higher and Tertiary Education, Innovation, Science and Technology (MHTEISTD), the camp will expose young innovators to different approaches of addressing community and global challenges, using the latest advanced technologies such as AI and robotics.
The training will target technologies which are being minimally exploited in the context of Zimbabwe, and push the youth to think outside the box as they attempt to solve problems of the day and those foreseen in the near future.
The bootcamp will provide a unique platform for experts to showcase applied solutions for socio-economic development, hands-on workshops, knowledge sharing and networking.
It will be conducted in four sessions. The first session will be an interactive roundtable discussion to introduce the key drivers of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR). Participants will also benefit from instruction by experts on concepts of AI, robotics and many other technologies associated with the 4IR. Topics to be covered include: Uses of AI and Robotics for Sustainable Development; Higher-level research in AI and Robotics; Ethics of AI and Robotics, and the Opportunities inherent in the two fields (both upstream and downstream).
The second session will focus on robotics and 3D printing and will be a hands-on session with the participants building robots and understanding how they can use the robots in solving some of the problems affecting the communities. The third session will focus on Artificial Intelligence, and will feature participants building an easy AI model. The fourth session will provide participants some opportunity to tinker around with all the learned concepts over the two days and solve a given problem in teams or groups and present their work at the end of the day.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a branch of computer science which involves developing computer programs to complete tasks which would otherwise require human intelligence. AI algorithms can tackle learning, perception, problem-solving, language-understanding and/or logical reasoning.
Robotics on the other hand is a branch of technology which deals with the design, construction, operation and application of robots and computer systems. Robots are programmable machines which are usually able to carry out a series of actions and tasks autonomously, or semi-autonomously. Robotics and AI can inspire youths towards exploiting science, engineering and technology for respective community socio-economic development programs, and for the attainment of the sustainable development goals.
