AI Africa Consortium

Education / Learning Strategy

Gregg Barrett, Cirrus

Roy Forbes, Wits University
Marcelo Rovai, UNIFEI - Universidade Federal de Itajubá
Session outline
- The general thinking
- Efforts underway at Wits for the AI Africa Consortium
- Experience on TinyML and TinyML4D
The thinking
- Need to build capacity

- Rapid deployment and scalability

- No reinventing the wheel

- Highest quality courseware for students

- Universities focus on value-add

- Work with those who get it The virus brought us here sooner!
Need to build capacity
- Over 100 000 students a year
- An entire pipeline is needed
Rapid deployment and scalability
- Requires working with leading MOOC (Massive Open Online Courses)
providers
- Started with Coursera
- But not to the exclusion of others
No reinventing the wheel
- Building a MOOC platform is infeasible

- Building courseware when it already exists is

squandering resources
- Particularly given the cost to build and maintain courseware
- Not to mention that such efforts are seldom superior to the
best that is already available

- Given the cost of education and the availability of https://arxiv.org/pdf/2106.04008.pdf

outstanding courseware, anything subpar cannot be
justified to students
Highest quality courseware for students
- That dude named Sal was onto something …

- And you want to build a data science, machine learning course ….

sure but ……
ISLR
Bloomberg ML
DeepLearning.AI
Yann LeCun’s Deep Learning Course
FSDL
TinyML
Fast.ai
OpenDS4All
RISC-V
Open Source Society University
Universities focus on value-add
- Move toward a flipped
classroom
- Collaborations, real-world
projects and assignments
- Assessments
Collaborations and real-world projects
Collaborations, real-world projects
Work with those who get it
Efforts underway at Wits for
the AI Africa (AIA) Consortium
- Wits will host and manage the AIA Consortium.

- 4IR Panel key summary point: Invest in human capital development.

PRIORITY AREA: EDUCATIONAL PLATFORMS

- The use of existing course materials by the members of the AIA Consortium to
enable rapid upskilling of a large contingent of post students across multiple
disciplines.
- Using MOOC’s to make use of the flipped classroom format.
- For example: The Coursera Platform.

22
The potential of the Coursera
Platform
- Potential for institutions of higher learning to integrate Coursera course content
into existing curriculums, but to also:
- Add new/replace existing content.
- Supporting a flipped classroom.
- Develop guided projects, assignments and assessments.
- Make use of the 24 hour support systems already in-place.
Search Term “Machine Learning” “artificial Intelligence” “Data Science”
No. of courses available 1577 1611 2979
on Coursera:
- Institutions can also place their novel course content onto the Coursera platform
for global consumption.
- Revenue generation.
- Drive adoption of the use of online platforms.
23
Using AI Africa (AIA) Consortium
to further AI education

- Using the AIA Consortium as the vehicle to drive adoption of

top quality academic programs.
- The AIA Consortium offers the opportunity to reduce the cost
of education through:

- Lowering the cost of course development and maintenance.

- Focusing on the value-add proposition of existing platforms.
- Significantly lower cost of education per student through economies of
scale.
- Lower cost of course deployment through the use of MOOC platforms.

- Academic programs complement and leverage other

consortium resources and infrastructure.

24
Adopting Coursera content in
existing degree programs
- The Wits/Coursera partnership:
- Develop short courses in the field of specialization of machine learning and
data science for use by Materials Science research students.
- Embed coursera courses as stand alone modules in existing degree programs.
- Develop course materials using the coursera platform for our own internal
research focus areas.
- These courses will be integrated in the existing BSc Hons, MSc and PhD
degree programs in Chemistry at Wits but with the intention to deploy
similar tailored programs within other faculties.
- Obtain a “Coursera for Campus” license for the AIA Consortium members.

25
Integrating with Coursera for
Campus
- To make full use of the “Coursera for Campus” license, we are
currently exploring the following options and benefits for the AI Africa
Consortium:

- Using existing Coursera content to create short courses:

- For rapid up-take and training of students across multiple disciplines.

- Creation of custom in-house content to be added to the Coursera catalogue.

- Embedding Coursera course materials in existing degree programs specifically to

upskill postgraduate students who have research expertise in their own fields of
specialization.
26
 TinyML
Embedded Machine
Learning
A Brazilian Educational Experience at
Universidade Federal de Itajubá - UNIFEI

Prof. Marcelo Rovai

 Who I am
• I am a Brazilian from São Paulo, Data Science Master’s degree by
UDD, Chile, and MBA by IBMEC (INSPER), Brazil.
• I graduated in 1982 as an Engineer from UNIFEI with Specialization
from Poli/USP, both in Brazil.
• I worked as a teacher, engineer, and executive in several technology
companies such as CDT/ETEP, AVIBRAS Aeroespacial, SID
Informática, ATT-GIS, NCR, DELL, COMPAQ (HP), and more recently
at IGT, where I continue as a Senior Advisor for Latin America.
• I write about electronics, publishing my works in sites as
MJRoBot.org (Editor/Writer), Hackster.io (#1 Contributor),
Instructables.com, and Medium.com (TDS – Towards Data Science).

• I am a Volunteer Professor at UNIFEI Engineering Institute (IESTI) Marcelo José Rovai

What is Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML)?

Tiny machine learning (TinyML) is a fast-growing field of

machine learning technologies and applications
including algorithms, hardware, and software
What is Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML)?

Tiny machine learning (TinyML) is a fast-growing field of

machine learning technologies and applications
including algorithms, hardware, and software
capable of performing on-device sensor data analytics
What is Tiny Machine Learning (TinyML)?

Tiny machine learning (TinyML) is a fast-growing field of

machine learning technologies and applications
including algorithms, hardware, and software capable
of performing on-device sensor data analytics
at extremely low power consumption, typically in the
mW range and below, and hence enabling a variety of
always-on ML use-cases on battery-operated devices.
Offline Prediction of Cholera in Rural Communal Tap Waters

https://cms.tinyml.org/wp-content/uploads/emea2021/tinyMLEMEA2021d2_Ogore.pdf
IESTI01 – TinyML Course at UNIFEI - Brazil
Part 1
Part 1 - April/May PartPart
June 2
2 - June Part 3
Part 3 - July/August

Fundamentals Applications Deploying

of TinyML of TinyML TinyML

• Python • Python • Python

• Google Colab • Google Colab
• Jupyter Notebook • Jupyter Notebook
• Edge Impulse Studio
• Google Colab
• Jupyter Notebook
• Edge Impulse Studio
• IDE (as Arduino)
• C/C++
IESTI01 – TinyML Course at UNIFEI - Brazil
Part 1
Part 1 - April/May PartPart
June 2
2 - June Part 3
Part 3 - July/August

Fundamentals Applications Deploying

of TinyML of TinyML TinyML

• Python • Python • Python

• Google Colab • Google Colab
• Jupyter Notebook • Jupyter Notebook
• Edge Impulse Studio
• Google Colab
• Jupyter Notebook
• Edge Impulse Studio
• IDE (as Arduino)
• C/C++
IESTI01 – TinyML Course at UNIFEI - Brazil
Part 1
Part 1 - April/May PartPart
June 2
2 - June Part 3
Part 3 - July/August

Fundamentals Applications Deploying

of TinyML of TinyML TinyML

• Python • Python • Python

• Google Colab • Google Colab
• Jupyter Notebook • Jupyter Notebook
• Edge Impulse Studio
• Google Colab
• Jupyter Notebook
• Edge Impulse Studio
• IDE (as Arduino)
• C/C++

Software + Algorithms + Hardware

Hands-on Activities
TinyML Kit
TinyML Kit – Delivered at student ‘s home
Course Structure
• Weekly live lectures (15 weeks)
• Slides
• Hands-on coding (by teacher & students)
• Weekly Aditional Readings
• Guest Lecturer (Daniel Situnayaki, EI)
• Assignments
• Quizzes (Weekly)
• Notebooks with codes (5)
• Hands-on lab reports (4)
• Final Project (5 groups - 3 or 4 students)
• Report
• Presentation
https://github.com/Mjrovai/UNIFEI-IESTI01-T01-2021.1
Pre-Course Survey: Areas of Engineering
Pre-Course Survey: MCU Knowledge
Pre-Course Survey: Python and TensorFlow
Pos-Course Survey: Contribution to Learning
TinyML4D – Academic Network (1st phase)
Morocco
Malaysia
Namibia
Bolivia
Chile
Colombia
Brazil
Malaysia
Rwanda
Benin
Argentina
Japan
India
Ethiopia
South Africa
Guatemala
Nigeria
TinyML4D – Main Initiatives 2021/22
1. TinyML lectures to IFSP Brazil (Eng. and Tech School) professors (July/21); Semana de
Automação (Aug/21) and IV Semana de Automação (Sept/21) - MJRovai
• 3 professors to joint TinyML course spring version (IESTI01.T2 - Sept to Dec)
2. TinyML @ Mozambique (ICTP initiative):
• TinyML course - IESTI01.T1 (Brazil Autumn version) content in Portuguese to be available
offline to students in Mozambique and 2 professors from MZ to joint BR UNIFEI TinyML
course spring version (IESTI01.T2 - Sept to Dec)
• TinyML project group - connection between MZ and BR students - José Alberto
3. SciTinyML ICTP workshop – Academic Network: Oct/21
4. TinyML Lecture at online WALC 2021 (Workshop para America Latina y el Caribe) -
(Nov/21) MJRovai
5. 2022 TinyML course in Colombia (Engineering School) - Prof. Jesus
 Thanks
And stay safe!
Reference
Slide 6: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2106.04008.pdf
Slide 7: https://www.khanacademy.org/
Slide 8: https://www.statlearning.com/
Slide 9: https://bloomberg.github.io/foml/#home
Slide 10: https://www.coursera.org/specializations/deep-learning
Slide 11: https://cds.nyu.edu/deep-learning/
Slide 12: https://fullstackdeeplearning.com/
Slide 13: https://www.edx.org/professional-certificate/harvardx-tiny-machine-learning
Slide 14: https://www.fast.ai/
Slide 15: https://lfaidata.foundation/projects/opends4all/
Reference
Slide 16:
https://www.vicilogic.com/static/ext/RISCV/REV2021/presentation/video/RISCVOnlineTutor_vicilogic_FearghalMorgan_REV2
021_26thFeb.html
Slide 17: https://github.com/ossu/computer-science#summary
Slide 18: https://web.stanford.edu/class/cs229a/
Slide 19: https://mlcommons.org/en/groups/research-science/
Slide 20: https://www.hackster.io/contests/ElephantEdge
https://armkeil.blob.core.windows.net/developer/Files/pdf/case-study/arm-endpoint-ai-arribada.pdf
https://towardsdatascience.com/using-machine-learning-to-tackle-arms-proliferation-in-russian-trade-data-e457f44002c0
https://c4ads.org/
Slide 21: https://www.linkedin.com/in/halspeed/
https://ewn.co.za/2021/07/21/uct-is-africa-s-first-university-to-launch-online-high-school-platform