October/November 2022 Ishango Data Science Fellowship Launched
We are pleased to welcome our latest group of fellows for the October/November 2022 Ishango.ai Data Science Fellowship. The 8-week fully-funded, remote fellowship provides an opportunity for budding talented African data scientists to enhance their technical and professional skills by working on real-world projects for global companies.
In 2021, we launched the Ishango data science Fellowship to recognize and build data science talent in Africa and connect them with global opportunities. Since our inception, our fellows have made some incredible contributions to their host companies, and today, a number of our past fellows have been hired by global companies to continue building their businesses using the power of data.
This cohort marks the third class of Ishango.ai fellows, selected through a highly competitive process with more than 250 promising students applying from over 25 countries across Africa. The selected group of fellows are from Cameroon, Chad, Ghana, Nigeria, and Ethiopia.
Over the 8 weeks of the programme, fellows will develop their technical and professional skills with support from a global network of experts and mentors including Chih-Chun Chen, Chris Toumping Fotso, Phoebe Babrah, James Walsh, Carlos Pinheiro and Ingmar Weber.
They will also be exposed to data science best practices and insights through expert sessions on various topics including Data Ethics & Data Protection, Anomaly Detection as well as soft skills training.
Schedule and Format of the Fellowship
The fellows will work in teams and tackle the problem that has been presented by the host company. This year, we piloted our very first virtual fellowship with our fellows residing in 4 countries across Africa. With the help of collaborative tools and systems we have in place as well as the outstanding support from our volunteers and mentors, the fellows are well equipped to have a fruitful fellowship experience virtually.
In the first week, all fellows will have a kick-off with their respective host companies and they will get to know more about their projects through the initial project presentation. During weeks 2 – 4, fellows will receive several trainings in the form of expert sessions as well as participate in informal peer-to-peer project presentations and discussions to exchange ideas and also help build confidence in their presentation skills.
After four weeks of working on their respective projects, fellows will then have a mid-term presentation where they will share updates on their projects so far with their host companies. The subsequent weeks after the midterms will be focused on completing the project with a final presentation scheduled for week 8 of the fellowship.
Each fellow has access to our data scientist in residence as well as other mentors in the data science space who will support them as they work on their respective projects.
Congratulations to all our new Ishango Fellows! We’re honoured to host this next cohort as they begin their data science career journeys.