Over the last six months I have been crisscrossing the countries of East Africa, majorly, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda to not only understand the nations in terms of economy, especially the key enablers, Education, Health sectors that impact the cognitive and physical well being of the nations, but also the government – private sector play that predominantly infuse energies in any nation’s progress fiscally.

One of the most important challenges for any developing nation is to build its human resources potential. That can happen by only building quality education –

• Through school systems, that must reach the last citizen of the country. And this system has to build strong foundation in basic languages, mathematics, sciences and humanities to help ever child blossom in their primary and middle schools. Then on, identify the inclinations and potential of the children by the time they get into secondary education and facilitate them into those career choices that they will excel in.
• Creating a world class tertiary education system, that can build the capabilities and skill sets of the youth that are emerging from the school system, to nurture and give wings to every child who has chosen a path to excel.

India has done reasonably well from the very beginning with a vision to build a strong foundation for the nation, by investing in creating quality institutions like Indian Institutes of Technology (IIT) and National Institutes of Technologies (NIT), Medical institutions like All India Institutes of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), Indian Institutes of Management (IIM), National Law Schools (NLS) and also bodies like Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) and more.. The Alums of these institutions are today heading over 30 world class corporations of the world, setting agendas for the progression of the world, and also impacting every nook and corner of the world.

As one of the initiatives of Government of India to build capacities of friendly developing nations, India has started implanting their best educational institutions in many a developing nation across the world. This will bring world class educational institutions and their programs within the reach of the populations of these nations and the gentry need not fly towards the US, UK, Europe and Australia for their beyond school education.

Over the last couple of years, India has started moving in this direction with a few –

• NFSU (I) Campus at Jinja, Uganda is the campus of National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU) of India. It is not only the first ever overseas campus of NFSU but also India’s very first campus abroad for any public academic institution.
• This year Indian Institutes of Technology have moved into Zanzibar, Tanzania (IIT Madras) and Abu Dhabi, UAE (IIT Delhi)

CL Educate over the last 20 years has spread its wings through various initiatives to many geographies of the world, from South East Asia on one end (Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia) to the US on the far west, and in between, in the middle-east – the Gulf Countries. I have been involved in making these inroads, especially the Gulf, where I stayed for five long years. We have impacted scores of children and their families in all of these countries over the last two decades. I am sure the next generation of those youth we facilitated two decades ago, have also stepped into the corridors of CL centres in these countries too, the way they have in India.

We have been getting requests from the Indian diaspora settled in the African nations for over centuries to impact the education scenario here too, especially facilitating children in excelling in life. That brought CL Educate to start exploring Africa, with East Africa as the initial frontier.

I have been travelling these countries for the last six months, and, as IIT Madras has set up it campus in Zanzibar, we thought why not facilitate IIT Madras Zanzibar too to make inroads into the minds and souls of the citizens of the African countries while we are making CL Educate’s inroads into Africa. Thus was born the idea of Data Science A I Retreats (DSAIRe), since IIT Madras has started its undergrad, grad and PhD programs in Data Science.

The approach is two pronged –

A. The Data Science A I Retreats not only spread the awareness of IIT Madras Zanzibar among the opinion leaders and influencers of the nations, but also demonstrates the quality of the faculty that are in the Campus in Zanzibar.

B. Take the route of creating Education and Career Fairs with IIT Madras Zanzibar as the pivotal institution in the fairs to reach parents and children, with workshops relevant to them.

CL Educate partnered with IIT Madras Zanzibar and Zindi Africa, the largest platform of data scientists in Africa, to design and execute the DSAIRe, starting with East African nations, Tanzania and Kenya. We have already had the first DSAIRe in Dar Es Salaam on Dec 1-2, 2023.

Here is the webpage with the details of the DSAIRes.

I am just sharing here a few of the reflections that the participants as well as the facilitators shared after the first DSAIRe in Dar Es Salaaam.

As we progress, with our DSAIRe in Nairobi on March 1-2, 2024 and Dar Es Salaam on March 8-9, 2024, we look forward to touching and immersing many more organizations with their CXOs and the leadership teams participating in these DSAIRe and then taking each of them through the follow up action…

We have envisioned this DSAIRe as a starting point, an initiative to create awareness and expose the CXOs, the leadership of organizations, that includes not only the CEO and COO, but also those who are heading technology, analytics, marketing, operations etc, of the power of Data Science and AI, and how the leadership together need to engage to create a lasting impact in the organizations.

We wish to impact every organization, and in turn every economy in East Africa, in the coming years, with the expertise of the outstanding teams at IIT Madras, Zindi and CL educate. We shall bring the best of the facilitating team to create a deep impact, not only in immersive understanding of Data Science and AI, but also to facilitate the member entities to make the next moves….

1. Facilitating the entities to integrate Data Science thinking in strategy making
2. Customized Organizational centric training for larger leadership

3. Helping in recruiting or contracting top data science talent in Tanzania and beyond.

4. Tailored upskilling for in-house technical team in data science skills

5. Consulting work to address the pain points and challenges to enhance productivity and bottom-line.

6. Building the Data science tools and Platforms that are designed to address the specific needs

The transformational initiatives in any organization using data science and emerging technologies will certainly lead to –

• streamline processes,
• Increase efficiency and efficacy.
• Reduce manpower,
• Retain talent,
• Reduce costs.
• Increase revenues.
• Boost the bottom-lines.

On the front of impacting school and university education, and career facilitation, CL Educate is still finding its feet, as engaging interactions with various players in the eco-system is underway. I hope to see a lot of promising endeavors emerging this year.

Shall keep sharing, as I undertake this journey.

God bless!