Anambra to include AI, robotics in educational curriculum, says ICT boss

The Managing Director, Anambra ICT Agency, Mr Chukwuemeka Agbata, says the State Government has commenced plans to review the educational curriculum to include coding, artificial intelligence (AI) and robotics.

Agbata said this during the signing of an MoU on AI and Robotics Education (RE) between Bliss Team Educational Services Limited (Bredhub-UbTech), an ICT company, and Chukwuemeka Odumegwu Ojukwu University (COOU).

Agbata said the MoU was in line with Gov. Chukwuma Soludo’s manifesto to review the educational curriculum of the state to allow students to do coding, launching, AI and robotics.

He said: “It is not a coincidence that we are here today to launch an initiative, where students of COOU will have a good time with a real-time robot that is disrupting the world.

“The university system must continue to play an important role, akin to the revolution played by Stanford University that birthed Silicon Valley, one of the top tech capitals in the world.

“We hope that COOU will play a leading role to energise the Anambra tech drive that Mr Governor has been dreaming of.”

Also, the Acting Vice Chancellor of the university, Prof. Kate Omenugha, said the university had looked forward to the ‘disruptive creativity’ that would benefit students and university staff members.

Omenugha said that the MOU on AI and RE gave her a sense of fulfillment because it aligned with her administration’s desire to add academic and social values to the institution.

“When we came into this university, we wanted to add academic and social bites in what we are doing.

“This has in turn made the university a beehive of academic activities within the last seven months of my administration.

“We drew inspiration from Gov. Soludo.

“Two professors from the university have already done 13-weeks training on AI and RE in readiness for this project.

“We have to key into this because there are so many things we will learn.

“It will also be open to the outside community, including those people consuming hard drugs because it will keep them busy,” Omenugha said.

According to her, part of what the university does is community service to both its internal and external publics, with a view to giving back to society.

The Managing Director of Bredhub, Mr Ahamefula Michael, advised people to improve their knowledge about AI and robotics in order to be in tune with the Fourth Industrial Revolution era.

Michael said the firm wished to produce students with real knowledge that could provide solutions to society’s problems.