Awakening The Gaint!

About a year ago, we had the chance to present our work at the first artificial intelligence Conference organized by the former Artificial Intelligence Center. By that time our research was somehow at its infant stage. As researchers, we were excited such an institution was there to cultivate our work right at our next door. But what happened afterward is NVIDIA from thousands of miles away saw our potential and gave us free course credits and a community of researchers at our disposal for taking the research to the next level. This article is about two things. Our Progress and the factors that played the greatest role in how far we came.

Progress-

From a technical perspective, we set a goal to use NVIDIAs DeepStream SDK which I believe to be the best SDK for any vision-related AI project out there. Understanding this framework and building a project on top of it was the right move for us considering our limited experience in the field. I will post a demo on a different post to see clearly what we are doing and how far we came along. But most of all, this project is a real-life demonstration that anybody in the world can have access to learn the state-of-the-art latest technology and work towards disrupting the community around for the better. In my experience, This is due to two major factors.

The first major factor is the Internet. I am 28 years old and I believe to be part of the luckiest generation through our history. When I was in grade 8, we used to buy a donut for the only friend who by the time had a phone, so that we can play snake game on his phone. Internet used to be like a holiday that we experience once in a very while. High school was more all less the same except now we got our own phone and a very low-speed internet where we only know how to poke a girl you like on Facebook. College is where I think I started seeing the potential on the internet and built my first website. This journey helped me see the internet from a different perspective. The Internet has completely changed the world and at the time this article was written, it is disrupting Ethiopia drastically. Back in the day, titles mean more than individual achievement but also access to education. A grade eight student now can be a full stack developer right away, and compete with a computer science graduate. This could never happen at my time. Only for one thing, because back in the days the only place I could have learned about building a website was either at a university or a library going through 100 books talking about different parts of the overall thing. On the other side, the lack of internet helped me to build the patience to go through books to find a solution without an easy way out. This is why I think my generation is the luckiest. Getting back to my point, @NERD we had a great 8 student learning about the fundamentals of AI. But not just that, to learn about Deepstream if it was not for the internet our research team should've been accepted for a scholarship or internship at NVIDIA. Which for an undergrad student from Ethiopia seems very skeptical. But Thank God, the knowledge now is just a URL away from our keyboard.

The second factor is, the world is understanding human capital more than ever. Organizations like NVIDIA are providing resources freely to help enthusiasts to change their communities for the best. Opensource knowledge is the new university of the world. only determination seems to be the requirement for a person to create the next big thing. The emerging chapter's program has elevated our skill, vision, and determination. The world-class state-of-the-art tech organization opened its door to hungry young people from Ethiopia. This helped us see our potential. Awakening the ain't inside us. Once that switches on there is no going back. Cultivating talents not only to hire them in the future but to innovate on top of their knowledge base to build a better world is an indication I can't emphasize more that the world is growing smarter. This is not just about democratizing AI, or donations, this is sparking a light in those that feel distant from achieving something great on a global scale. The demography here is more than 70% of the population under 30. Inspiring 20% of that is my Ethiopian Dream!

My greatest gratitude goes to the emerging chapters Team, for believing in our potential will to move a muscle for the cause. We aspire to be great and return a favor to the world like you are doing. I believe many talents will be coming out of this opportunity changing the world for the better. Local tech companies should learn from this and give back to their communities. And by giving back I don't mean donations for holidays, programs to help equip the youth for a better Ethiopia.

Power to the NERDs,

I will see you on the one!