The Nigerian startup selected to build the country’s first AI, Awarri, has engaged over 500 fellows of the federal government’s 3 Million Technical Talent program as data collectors in building the Large Language Multilingual Model.
Dr. Bosun Tijani, the Minister of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy, revealed this on Wednesday, reiterating the government’s commitment to creating more jobs for Nigerians in the tech space.
“I’m glad to see the growth of the Awarri team since its launch in November 2023 to 120 staff, with an additional engagement of over 500 fellows from our 3MTTNigeria programme as data collectors.
The Minister said the project is a collaboration between Awarri, DataDotOrg, the National Information Technology Development Agency and the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics, supported by over 7,000 fellows from the 3MTT programme and $3.5m in funding from various partners.
“The LLM will be trained in five low-resource languages and accented English to ensure stronger language representation in existing datasets for the development of AI solutions,” the minister stated. “The project will also be supported by over 7,000 fellows from the 3MTT programme.”
“The initiative launched under the Renewed Hope agenda, targets training 30,000 individuals in its first phase, focusing on twelve technical skills, including software development and cybersecurity.
“President Bola Tinubu has emphasised the significance of the programme as a cornerstone of his administration’s strategy to create 2 million digital jobs by 2025,” Tijani said.
He viewed the initiative as vital for building Nigeria’s technical talent pool and positioning the country as a net exporter of tech talent.
