KADUNA, NIGERIA (7th February 2023) – It is with great honor that we announce the conclusion of the 2022 Click-On Kaduna Data Science Fellowship Programme. This Friday, the 10th of February 2023, 40 young people will be graduating from the 6-month programme.

The programme tagged DSFP 2.0, the second in the series, was launched by the Kaduna state government under the Data Lab Project as part of the state’s Data Revolution Plan, aimed at strengthening coordination in the collection and use of data for evidence-based decision-making. The Data Lab Project is jointly implemented by the Kaduna State Government, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Natview Foundation for Technology Innovation. It is a 5-year project aimed at supporting the state in implementing the Data Revolution Plan, with the core objective of developing human capital around data science and the use of data for decision-making.

In June 2022, 40 young people selected from a pool of over 5,000 applications had the exclusive opportunity to work closely with the Kaduna State Bureau of Statistics at the state-of-the-art Amina J. Mohammed SDG’s Data Lab. For three months, the fellows received practical and hands-on data science training under the tutelage of expert data science instructors selected from all around the state. Fellows were trained in research ethics and data governance, ODK scripting and data collection, data preparation using advanced Excel, SPSS, R, and Python programming languages, data visualization with Excel, R, and Power BI, including the use of GIS and Leaflet in data management. The fellows also gained soft skills in leadership, communication, teamwork, and work ethics.

During the class training, the fellows undertook practical field activities to help them build their experience, gather relevant data, and aid the government in solving pressing issues. At the DSFP 2.0 first fieldwork exercise, fellows of the Click-On Kaduna Data Science Fellowship Programme assisted the Kaduna State Contributory Health Management Authority (KADCHMA) as enumerators in a validation and enrollment exercise for pregnant women, children under 5, and the elderly in the state who receive free medical services from 254 Primary Health Care (PHCs) centers throughout the state’s 255 wards registered in the Basic Health Care Provision Funds (BHCPF), and the Vulnerable Program (VP). The fellows also joined the Kaduna State Bureau of Statistics as enumerators in the second phase of the “Out of School” census in order to collect accurate data on every out-of-school child in the state during their second fieldwork. They were specifically tasked with finding the kids who weren’t in school at the moment, collecting their demographic information, and determining why they weren’t in school. The fellows were attached to various local government areas (LGAs) for the exercise in Kaduna North, Kaduna South, Igabi, Chikun, Sabon Gari, and Zaria LGAs.

The second phase of the fellowship programme was all about helping the fellows gain practical experience implementing real-life end-to-end data management solutions in the state. They were integrated into the day-to-day activities of the Kaduna State Bureau of Statistics and relevant MDAs in the Kaduna State Ministry of Health to help the state build streams of pipelines that can provide more insights into the structure, form, and content of the health system in Kaduna State. The fellows also supported NFTI in achieving the minimum milestone requirements as provided in the BMGF grant proposal by working with KDBS and other stakeholders from the health sector to show strong use cases that can enable evidence-based decision-making.

Like the previous year, the DSFP 2.0 featured industry leaders and experts in the Guest Lecture Series designed to provide fellows with real-life experiences and mentorship support. This year, Hajia Umma Aboki, the Commissioner for the Kaduna State Planning and Budget Commission, and Dr. Amina Baloni, the Commissioner for the Kaduna State Ministry of Health, spoke as guest lecturers. At one of the series, we were also happy to have the statistician general of the Kaduna State Bureau of Statistics there as a guest lecturer.

As the 2022 Data Science Fellowship comes to a close, NFTI would like to thank all of our partners for contributing to another successful Fellowship year. The programme has now delivered 40 more trained data scientists in addition to the 30 fellows from the first cohort, who are already working to solve social challenges in both the public and private sectors in and outside of Africa.

We would like to congratulate all the graduating fellows and wish them the very best in all their future endeavors. Let’s use this space to tell you that 15 of the fellows who are graduating will be retained as data analyst interns to work on various life-impacting projects at our foundation.

About Natview Foundation

Guided by our vision to use data for social good, the Natview Foundation for Technology Innovation works to provide innovators across the public sector and the development space with platforms for experimenting and using the power of technology to confront real-world challenges and policy issues by providing exciting ways to generate data for decision-making. We are building a knowledge-based ecosystem by using data science, artificial intelligence, and machine learning to solve social policy problems in health, education, and agriculture. We are also empowering a new generation of young data scientists who can take advantage of the digital economy in the 21st century.

For more information on our impact stories, please visit www.natviewfoundation.org.

You can also donate to support our cause to use data science for social good here: https://natviewfoundation.org/get-involved/support-us/.

Media Contact: info@natviewfoundation.org