DeepMind scholarships at Makerere University

DeepMind supports the establishment of master’s scholarships to study artificial intelligence at Makerere University.

DeepMind will make a donation to Makerere University to fund the establishment of four scholarships in the field of Machine Learning beginning in the academic year 2021/2022. The scholarships will support students who wish to study MSc. Computer Science programme (Track: AI and Data Science) taught in the Department of Computer Science at Makerere University beginning in the academic year 2021/22.

The scholarships will be open to students from Uganda, other East African countries, or International students from a Sub-Saharan African country. The scholarship package will include full financial support for tuition, stipend, equipment, AI conference participation and mentorship. International students will also be eligible for a relocation grant to move to Makerere to begin their studies.

Makerere University will join other leading universities in partnering with DeepMind to offer scholarships, including Stellenbosch University in South Africa and international partners, such as the Universities of Cambridge and Oxford, University College London and Imperial College in London.

Figure: Ongoing AI Research at Makerere University: Automated diagnosis of crop diseases using machine learning.

The Vice Chancellor of Makerere University, Prof. Barnabas Nawangwe applauded the partnership between Makerere University and DeepMind.

“In this era, Universities in Africa should embrace the Fourth Industrial Revolution if they are to remain relevant and competitive. To achieve this, Makerere University is partnering with reputable partners at the national and international levels to train hi-tech human resources and establish state-of-the-art teaching, learning and research facilities. So, the partnership between Makerere University and DeepMind is aligned to the already ongoing efforts by Makerere University to build the future workforce for the Fourth Industrial Revolution through our College of Computing and Information Sciences. This is a valuable partnership that will enable Makerere University to train and produce graduate students/researchers and scholars with expertise in Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning and Data Science. Thank you DeepMind for coming on board and for choosing to partner with Makerere University,” remarked Prof. Nawangwe.

Obum Ekeke, Global Lead, University Relations & Education Partnerships at DeepMind, added, “We are very proud to be further expanding our scholarships in Africa with Makerere university, and look forward to welcoming new African scholars to our programme. DeepMind’s education efforts recognise that talent must be nurtured in regions which can bring a diverse range of perspectives into AI research, to ensure AI is a technology that can bring benefits for all.”

Engineer Bainomugisha, Associate Professor and Chair of the Department of Computer Science at Makerere University, said  “We are delighted that DeepMind has provided funding to support graduate training in AI and Data Science at Makerere University.  The Department of Computer Science is committed to providing relevant skills in AI and machine learning. The scholarships will complement our ongoing efforts in AI training and research with emphasis on its applications to unique African challenges in the sectors of health, agriculture, and environment, among others. The scholarships will contribute to the growth of the African AI ecosystem.”

About DeepMind

DeepMind is a multidisciplinary team of scientists, engineers, machine learning experts and more, working together to research and build safe AI systems that learn how to solve problems and advance scientific discovery for all.

Best-known for developing AlphaGo, the first program to beat a world champion at the complex game of Go, DeepMind has published over 1000 research papers - including more than a dozen in Nature and Science - and achieved breakthrough results in many challenging AI domains from StarCraft II to protein folding.

DeepMind was founded in London in 2010, and joined forces with Google in 2014 to accelerate its work. Since then, its community has expanded to include teams in Alberta, Montreal, Paris, and Mountain View in California.

http://deepmind.com/scholarships

About the Department of Computer Science at Makerere University

The Department of Computer Science is one of the four Departments in the School of Computing and IT of the College of Computing and Information Sciences at Makerere University. The Department is recognized as one of the top Computer Science departments in Africa. Faculty and students in the Department are undertaking innovative research in areas such as machine learning, computer vision, natural language processing, and software systems security. The Department of Computer Science hosts the Makerere AI research lab that specialises in AI research and its applications to real world challenges including the automated diagnosis of crop and human diseases, auction design for mobile commodity markets, Google-funded research on monitoring and analysis of air pollution and traffic patterns in African cities. http://cs.mak.ac.ug

Eligible students for the scholarships need to be admitted to the MSc Computer Science programme. Applicants for the Msc Computer Science at Makerere University should look out for a call for graduate admissions for 2021/22 around the end of February 2021 (tentative) the Directorate of Research and Graduate Training  website. For more information about the DeepMind scholarships please contact cs@cis.mak.ac.ug  The scholarship announcement will be published around May 2021 on the Department and University websites.