Nigeria has unveiled Omeife, Africa’s first humanoid, to advance the development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and technology in the country.
Omeife was unveiled by Nigeria’s Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, in the nation’s capital Abuja.
As the first African humanoid with near-human resemblance, Omeife has language competency, movement, navigation, and behavioural intelligence with AI and Computer Vision capabilities.
Prof. Osinbajo, represented by the Minister of Communications and Digital Economy, Prof. Isa Ali Pantami, who was also represented by the Director General National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Kashifu Inuwa, said that the domestication of artificial intelligence would aid in serving the needs of citizens.
According to the Vice President, “We are living in an exciting time of advanced technological advancement, where the science fiction of yesterday is becoming the reality in products and services of today.”
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Africa’s First Humanoid Robot, Omeife
The Professor also highlighted that the federal government is responsible for ensuring the project is successful. He also called on other stakeholders to support the Omeife project and develop new ones.
“We are ready to support you and commercialise this technology. We want to see it deployed in our farms, road construction and in our classrooms.I have directed the National information technology development agency, NITDA to partner with Uniccon for the commercialisation of the Omeife technology.”
While assuring that the Federal Government is committed to supporting the domestication of the technology, Osinbajo encouraged the tech community to design strategies that would make sure Artificial Intelligence systems are developed inline with Nigeria’s policies, regulations and laws. He also enjoined the tech community to domesticate such innovation to suit the Nigerian culture.
Prof. Osinbajo also assuaged concerns about artificial intelligence taking over people’s jobs and leaving them unemployed.
Speaking on Africa’s contribution in technology, The Chief Executive Officer Uniccon Group of Companies, Chucks Ekwueme, said the continent is already being acknowledged for giving its quota to the global technology industry.
About Omeife
Ekwueme stated that Omeife is capable of speaking eight different languages alongside English, including Yoruba, Igbo, Hausa, Arabic, French, Kiswahili, Pidgin, and Afrikaans.
According to him, “through Omeife and our projects, we are happy to play a part in helping businesses and people all over Africa achieve their fullest potential by providing access to the most innovative technologies for efficiency.”
He added that because it is a multifunctional and assistance robot, the six-foot-tall female African humanoid provides languages as a service to businesses that need to integrate native African audiences.
The CEO said Omeife “identifies and tags humans through their faces and facial expressions, paying attention to a specific item when required.” “It identifies objects, knows their characteristics, and also calculates the positions and distances of objects it sees.”
He highlighted that the humanoid is child-friendly, as all vulgar words have been removed from her diction.
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Commercialising Omeife
Ekwueme emphasised that Omeife has an estimated revenue projection of 11.6 billion dollars in three years and therefore called on the federal government and other stakeholders to commercialise the technology that was created for Africa.
He said, “The challenge now is the commercialization of the technology; we need support from stakeholders not just to commercialise it but also for patronage and usage.” “I’m calling on the government, investors, the public sector, and industries to see how they can partner with us.”
While commending the landmark innovation, the High Commissioner of Rwanda to Nigeria, Stanislas Kamanzi, also emphasised the need to commercialise the robot as it would boost the African economy.
“I challenge you to use this milestone to commercialise this innovation. Once we do that, then we shall use this knowledge to transform the people to grow the economy of Nigeria, which will develop the economy of Africa.“
The Vice Chancellor of Summit University, Offa in Kwara State, Abiodun Musa Aibinu, said there is a need to promote artificial intelligence and robotics in Nigeria as “Nigeria and Africa must democratise academic culture to bridge the digital divide by producing 21st century thinkers.” He said this will positively impact the socio-economic growth of any country.
