The Nigerian Federal Govt Approves ‘Omeife’ Humanoid Robot for Promoting Digital Literacy

Omeife, a humanoid robot, has been given permission by the federal government to be used to enhance national digital literacy.

The Uniccon Group of Companies created Omeife, a female-appearing humanoid robot that can speak Pidgin, Yoruba, English, French, Arabic, Kiswahili, Hausa, Igbo, and Afrikaans. It is the first humanoid robot made in Africa.

Yau Isa Garba, national director of the National Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics at the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), stated that Omeife fits within Nigeria’s local content vision and policy on digital strategy at the signing of an MoU to deploy the technology throughout the country.

We are delighted that this comes from a Nigerian technology enterprise, he continued.

When Vice President Yemi Osinbajo revealed Omeife to a global audience last year, he said that the federal government would step up efforts to build the country by utilizing the abilities of young Nigerians in the field of artificial intelligence.

Garba claims that NITDA has outlined plans on how to collaborate with the business.

“We visited the business, and they showed us a few of the numerous projects they are now working on in addition to Omeife. At that point, the DG gave us the go-ahead to collaborate with the Uniccon Group in order to leverage Omeife in order to strengthen the digital literacy policy of NITDA and the ministry.

Even while it was a significant milestone, he claimed that the government still had a long way to go before it fully realized its plans to use digital technology.

“The project’s overall goal is to increase digital literacy in Nigeria by utilizing Omeife. The idea is to use the robot to provide direction, instructions, and other things, much as how humans use ChatGTP.

The good news is that we will use this in Nigeria’s four main languages: Pidgin, Hausa, Igbo, and Yoruba. We want to demonstrate complete inclusion and the advancement of this technology across all of Nigeria.

“We want to make Omeife accessible to all Nigerians through an application. In order to ensure that Nigerians profit from these technologies, we will offer APIs that integrate them.

Chuks Ekwuem, the chairman/CEO of Unicocon Group, stated that Nigeria’s government aims to have 95% of its population digitally literate by 2030 and that signing the Agreement is the right step in guiding Nigeria and other African nations toward this vision.