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The African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS), a Pan-African network that conducts post-graduate training, research and public engagement in mathematical sciences, has introduced a one-year intensive foundational programme to offer world-class training in machine intelligence. According to a statement released on Tuesday by AIMS, the programme will prepare African scientists and innovators to think about new ways to solve local and global challenges.

Called the African Masters in Machine Intelligence (AMMI), the programme was launched at the AIMS Rwanda Campus in partnership with Facebook and Google.

The first AMMI cohort will consist of 31 students – 40 percent of whom will be women – from 11 countries. AIMS said the training will be conducted using its existing model of learning, which entrails bringing lecturers from all over the world.

"Every course at AMMI will be lectured by leading experts from prestigious international institutions and we plan to expand the programme to other African countries starting next year,” said Prof. Moustapha Cissé, Founder and Director of the AMMI programme at AIMS. Cissé, who is also Head of the Google AI Centre in Ghana, said his dream is that in five years, the courses will be taught by the best scientists in the field who will be AMMI alumni.

The first AIMS centre was founded in Cape Town in 2003 by Professor Neil Turok, a renowned South African physicist. The network's mission is to enable Africa's brightest students to flourish as independent thinkers, problem solvers and innovators capable of propelling future scientific, educational and economic self-sufficiency on the continent. AIMS now consists of six centres of excellence (South Africa, Sénégal, Ghana, Cameroon, Tanzania and Rwanda. The AIMS Rwanda was launched in April 2017.

"I really enjoyed meeting the first cohort of the AMMI," said Jerome Pesenti, VP of Artififical Intelligence at Facebook. "What an amazingly diverse, eager and bright set of students! Facebook is really thrilled to support the AMMI and help nurture AI talent in Africa as it will be immensely valuable to whole AI community."