Mr Moustapha Cisse, Head of Google Artificial Intelligence (AI) Centre in Ghana has said research activities conducted by the centre are strictly guided by AI principles that ensured that the rights of people are not violated.

Artificial Intelligence Artificial is the simulation of human intelligence processes by machines, especially computer systems. These processes include learning (the acquisition of information and rules for using the information), reasoning (using rules to reach approximate or definite conclusions) and self-correction.

These principles according to Mr Cisse included socially beneficial, avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias, be accountable to people, uphold high standards to scientific excellence.

Mr Cisse was speaking at a three-day Ghana Data Science Summit Dubbed: "IndabaX Ghana" in Accra.

The event, organized by Wave-2 Analytics Limited aimed to bring increased awareness and capacity building efforts in data science and analytics (including data mining, machine learning, and artificial learning) to Ghana.

The Summit, being sponsored by Deep Learning Indaba, Google, and Microsoft was on the theme: "The Promise of Data Science for Economic Transformation".

It treated attendees to a series of lectures, panel discussions, and training sessions (tutorials) on Data Management, Business Analytics, Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence and hands-on tutorials.

He said Google would collaborate with universities and research institutions to deploy AI to solve challenges in the areas of agriculture, education and healthcare.

He said Google was optimistic about the incredible potential for AI and other advanced technologies to empower people and make access to things easier.

He said the goal was to advance the frontiers of science as they expect to have scientific impact through collaboration with other institutions.

He expressed the hope that their research results would be used in applied problems to enable and accelerate the finding of solutions to these problems.

“Most of what we do in our research centre is available to the larger public. We open-sourced code so that everyone can use it to build solutions,” he said.

He said the technology google wants to build in Africa would be relevant to the people, when it was built by African themselves.

Mr Delali Agbenyegah, Co-Founder of Wave-2 Analytics said the best practices regarding data collection and management as well as machine intelligence was discussed by accomplished experts with illustrations with the right technology to ensure successful analytical product delivery.

He said the theme was carefully chosen to allow participants and the entire citizenry of Ghana and Africa to reflect on and deepen their understanding of Data Science.

“Indeed, many countries are reaping the benefits of leveraging Data Science and its applications in terms of economic and social transformation,” he said.

“Data Science holds the same promise for our motherland,” he added.

Mr Agbenyagah said a lot of people, who have had the opportunity to lead Data Science initiatives in many different places have seen the clear value it had brought to the organizations that leverage them.

He said the increased technological advancements in Ghana and Africa came along with huge amounts of data that were captured daily with each human interaction in financial institutions, retail companies, health facilities, social media interactions, government organizations, educational institutions, manufacturing companies and many more.

He said this presented a bigger opportunity for the African continent to harness the insights from all these data and build Data Science products that would improve organizational performance and raise the standard of living of our citizens.

“To realize these potential benefits, we must continue to create awareness and build the right capacity to equip local professionals,” he added.

The summit was attended by data science professionals, students, researchers, and business leaders from Ghana, South Africa, Senegal, Cameroon, Nigeria and Togo.