By
Morkporkpor Anku, GNA
Accra, April 27, GNA –
Wave-2 Analytics, a marketing consulting firm has organised a three-day summit
in Accra to discuss the future of data science and its importance to
socio-economic development.
The summit with
sponsorship from Microsoft and Google, was attended by data science
professionals, students, researchers, and business leaders from Ghana, South
Africa, Senegal, Cameroon, Nigeria and Togo.
Mr Delali Agbenyegah,
a Co-Founder of Wave-2 Analytics said data science was a smart way of
leveraging data to make informed decisions and the summit was to build capacity
around data analytics, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
He said data science
had helped many developed countries to improve their health status in terms of
early diagnosis of diseases, growth in customer experience, and analysis of
customer behaviour.
He emphasised that
data science was also helping governments to operationalise and become more
efficient in detecting and fighting corruption, terrorism, and fraud.
Mr Agbenyegah urged
data science professionals and governments on the continent to create awareness
on the importance of data science, build the capacity of their citizens on data
science and improve on the syllabus of their educational institutions by
introducing practical ICT teaching to allow students to have hands on training.
Ms Winifred Kotin, the
Director of Superfluid Labs in her keynote address said if the country decided
to be data driven, data scientists could be employed to help solve problems of
both public and private institutions.
She emphasized that if
the country had able to transition to a level of using data to drive economic
growth, it would make great impacts at small levels.
“Enhancing outputs in
terms of manufacturing, Agriculture, mining, oil and gas, we can do a lot of
growth using optimisation and predicting what is likely to happen in the
manufacturing process. An example is BMW, which uses a lot of data driven
robotics internet for their outputs,” she said.
Ms Kotin said a
decision to establish a business took a long process, therefore, access to
capital, enabling environment, housing need, and access to market needed to be
improved.
GNA
