From strengthening government systems to building sustainable communities and upskilling the next generation of data scientists in Africa, the Natview Foundation has no doubt had an impactful 2021. As the Covid-19 pandemic continued with its devastation across the world and has fundamentally changed the way we work and interact, NFTI has persevered through the unprecedented upheaval, and we are proud of our achievements in the past year.
We’ll walk you through our 2021 journey and show you some of our most proud accomplishments in this article.
The Warawa Living Lab Project Launch:
On September 20th, 2021, the NFTI launched the Living Lab project at the Warawa Community in Kano State. The Warawa Living Lab Project seeks to develop innovative strategies to address the issue of water scarcity in some of our most vulnerable communities while using data generated from such intervention to understudy the impact of the provision of water to everyday social issues and behavioral patterns driving decisions in communities with lack of access to this necessary commodity. The initiative, which has been in the works for more than two years, has seen several achievements.
NFTI’s partnership with communities in Kano State promises to deliver sustainable change. Our innovative social infrastructure is currently addressing the issue of water scarcity in some of the most vulnerable areas. The goal is to provide water whilst infusing technology to collect data for social good. So far, over 4,000 inhabitants of the Warawa Community have been impacted by the NFTI’s Living Lab Program. Several people are now meeting their daily needs for clean water and sanitation, and this is having a positive impact on their health and education.
The Data Lab Project:
Since 2018, our foundation has supported the Kaduna State Bureau of Statistics (KDBS) in the implementation of the Data Lab Project. The Project, which is jointly implemented by the Kaduna State Government, Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and NFTI, aims to strengthen the collection and use of data for evidence-based decision making. In 2021, NFTI continued to deploy its full resources to help the Kaduna state government make good use of data to drive policy decisions in key sectors of the state’s economy.
The KDBS is now better positioned to carry out its strategic mission of eliminating waste, increasing statistical standards, and producing quality data for decision-makers, planners, and researchers in an objective, cost-efficient, timely, and effective way as a result of our support.
The Inaugural Data Science Fellowship Programme:
The successful execution of the first Data Science Fellowship Program is very exciting for us as upskilling African youths with data science skills has always been a key goal for our foundation. With support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Kaduna State Government, the Click-On Kaduna Data Science Fellowship Programme was launched and it has been adjudged as a world-class digital skills development program. Don’t take our word for it, visit the state-of-the-art Amina J. Mohammed Data Lab Facility and speak with some of our fellows who have benefited from the program. The fellowship stands out as one of the best data science training programs in Africa in terms of the range and depth of the training curriculum, the quality of the instructors, and the tools. NFTI will continue to improve on the program in the coming years as it plans to open up applications into the second cohort of the program.
30 young people were selected from a pool of over 6,000 applications to participate in the 6-months long program. After the pioneer cohorts ended their program in August 2021, 33% of them got to transition to data science-related jobs and programs, while NFTI retained 30% of the fellows as Data Analysts.
Covid-19 Case Management Analytics System:
With the unrelenting rampage of new variants of covid-19, we took our game up a notch by helping the Kaduna State Ministry of Health make sense of the data collected on Covid-19 cases in the state. The Covid-19 Case Management Dashboard developed by our team is used to tactically monitor and manage covid-19 cases for better outcomes.
New Year, New Possibilities.
2021 was a stellar year for everyone at NFTI. We worked relentlessly towards our mission to foster the use of data for social good. With hope and resolution, we say bring on 2022! Our hopes are high, and we’re ready to employ data science to successfully raise voices that haven’t been heard for far too long. We recognize that data will be critical in speeding up the process of reaching the 2030 SDGs and we are ready to partner with the global community to achieve the target. A huge thanks to our partners for their trust in us and to our talented team for all their hard work and passion in making these projects possible. We look forward to sharing our 2022 encounters with you soon.
Follow our journey this year, follow us on all our social media platforms @NFTI_Africa.
