Omeife: Humanoid Robot Will Increase Learning, Aid Effectiveness — Group

The Uniccon Group of Companies said that the first African humanoid robot, "Omeife," will improve learning and contribute to the success of digital literacy across the continent.

This was said by the group's Chairman, Dr Chuks Ekwueme, at the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) on Monday in Abuja at the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Uniccon.

According to Ekwueme, the technology framework (Omeife) that would be used to accomplish this goal had been created and tailored by Africans, for Africans.

Unlike other imported technologies, which frequently fail to adequately take into account Africans in their development and deployment, he claimed that this would increase efficacy.

Ekwueme thanked the NITDA director general for promoting indigenous technological content in Nigeria.

He praised the organisation for its objective to increase digital literacy in Nigeria to 95% by 2030, which was currently the highest goal among other African nations.

Ekwueme added: “Omeife as a Service (OaaS) will make learning easier when integrated with the agency’s Learning Management System (LMS).”

The National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (NCAIR) Director, Garba Ya'u, spoke on behalf of Inuwa Kashifu, Director-General of NITDA, and stated that the partnership would help Nigeria reach a 95% digital rate by 2030.

In order to make the proposal a reality, Kashifu stated that the agency and Unnicon would make use of the technical component.

He claimed that everyone there was delighted with the homegrown technology that neatly fit into the demand for local content.

Kashifu added: “We have paid a visit to Unnicon group some time ago and we had some discussions, they showed us some of their projects apart from Omeife.

“The DG directed that we work with the group to leverage Omeife in deepening the digital literacy content of NITDA and the ministry.

“We are going to leverage on four languages majorly spoken in Nigeria, which are:  Pidgin, Hausa, Yoruba and Igbo.

“We want to show absolute inclusion, where no Nigerian will be left behind on the idea.

“Very soon, we will be going into the technical aspect to see how we can bring this to reality.”