Our winners represent the best and brightest minds tackling the complexities of AI governance in Nigeria. Their insightful policy briefs address critical issues in healthcare, intellectual property, and inclusivity, offering tangible solutions for a sustainable future.
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About the Challenge
About the Challenge
The DOWA AI Policy Challenge: Shaping Nigeria's Future is a post-initiative inspired by the success of the DOWA Google Masterclass. This challenge was launched to engage the brilliance of Nigerian undergraduate and graduate students around the world in creating transformative policies that address the unique challenges and opportunities of AI governance in Nigeria.
At its core, the challenge is a testament to DOWA's commitment to empowering future leaders, amplifying innovation, and fostering thought leadership in the tech policy space. By tackling complex themes like AI in healthcare, intellectual property, and education, participants showcased their vision for a better future and their dedication to shaping policies that balance innovation, equity, and accountability.
Each year, the DOWA AI Policy Challenge will continue to inspire and spotlight the next generation of policymakers, encouraging young Nigerians to bring their insights, skills, and creativity to the forefront of global policy discussions. Winners receive cash prizes, professional exposure, and opportunities to further their ideas through partnerships with key organizations and initiatives.
Participation and Impact
The challenge saw an overwhelming response, with submissions from passionate undergraduate and graduate students of Nigerian descent across the globe. Each policy brief reflected unique perspectives and demonstrated a deep understanding of the complexities of AI governance. After rigorous evaluation, the top submissions stood out for their originality, feasibility, and impactful recommendations.
Meet the Top 3 Winners
Meet the Top 3 Winners
Adejuwon and Haroun wins the challenge with their Policy paper titled "AI Governance in Nigeria’s Healthcare Sector: Building a Framework for Responsible Innovation" as team participants!
Adejuwon and Haroun wins the challenge with their Policy paper titled "AI Governance in Nigeria’s Healthcare Sector: Building a Framework for Responsible Innovation" as team participants!
First Place Winner (Team)
First Place Winner (Team)
Adejuwon Adegite is a graduate of the Department of Cell Biology and Genetics at the University of Lagos, where he served as the department's president from 2023-2024. His interests include vaccine design and development, focusing on synthetic biology and protein engineering. Adejuwon participated in the Clinical Genetics and Bioinformatics Summer Program (CGB) at the Keck Graduate Institute, California. He also completed an intermediate synthetic biology course with SynBio4All Africa, focusing on engineering microbes, protein engineering, metabolic engineering, and human health sustainability. He specialises in applying bioinformatics tools, machine learning, and AI to address complex health issues, with a focus on vaccine design, protein engineering, and structural genomics.
Adejuwon is particularly passionate about utilising these technologies to optimise antigens for vaccine development and enhance healthcare outcomes. He is also the co-founder of TechBio, focusing on offering free data science trainings in life science to Nigerian undergraduates at no cost.
First Place Winner (Team)
First Place Winner (Team)
Haroun Adebakin is a first-class graduate of the Department of Cell Biology and Genetics at the University of Lagos. He is the founder of TechBio, which offers free data science training to life science students in Nigerian universities at no cost. He is passionate about using AI for revolutionizing healthcare and other sectors. Haroun is an alumni of the Sprint AI Training for African Medical Knowledge Translation (SPARK) program where he participated in the Brain Tumor Segmentation (BraTS) 2024 Challenge, collaborating with medical doctors, radiologists, and AI engineers to apply the SwinUNETR architecture. His team also made a short paper submission to the BraTS 2024 challenge. As a Data Science Fellow at SAIL Innovation Lab, he is currently working on an AI model for cervical cancer screening.
His team is gathering the first pap smear imaging dataset from the Nigerian population. Haroun presently works as an AI Engineer at PublicaAI.
Second Place Winner (Individual)
Second Place Winner (Individual)
Andrew Ayobami is a recent graduate with a Bachelor of Laws degree from the Obafemi Awolowo University, Nigeria. He is very critical of climate action, renewable energy and technology. Driven by his interest in modern day innovation, Andrew recently secured second place in the AI Policy Case Study Challenge organized by Doing Good Work in Africa (DOWA). An avid lover of sports and arts, Andrew also enjoys writing, debating and public speaking. As a student, he won a total of ten prizes across writing and debate competitions. Outside of his academic endeavour, Andrew doubles as a web developer, with a focus on working on the front end of software. For him, technology is a viable tool we must use to address real life problems that confront us daily. He currently strives to achieve this by expanding his legal and technological knowledge bank to ultimately make a difference in climate action and energy.
Third Place Winner (Individual)
Third Place Winner (Individual)
Chibundom Ndukwu is a first-class law graduate of Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka. Throughout her academic tenure, she demonstrated exceptional leadership by serving in different positions, including Senior Editor at Nnamdi Azikiwe University Law Review, the Editor-in-chief of JCIN UNIZIK and the Lord Chancellor of Equity Chambers, amongst many other positions, which earned her the awards of Female Leadership Icon of the Year 2024 by Lawsa Unizik and Student Leadership Icon of the Month of July by African Law Students Association. A prolific and award-winning creative and academic writer, she has authored two published books, one of which was the first runner up for a national award. She has also emerged top 3 in over five essay competitions. As a result, she was nominated for Legal Writer of the Year for the South East Zone by Lawsan in 2022 and awarded Legal Writer of the Year in 2022 and 2023 by Lawsa Unizik, As an AI Enthusiast, she has written extensively on the subject, with one of her essays winning first place in the Pentagon Partners LP National Essay Competition. This article ended up being presented at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University International AI Conference. Complementing her academic and professional pursuits, she maintains a personal development blog, where she shares insights and expertise on self-improvement and growth.
Other Finalists Include:
Other Finalists Include:
4th Place - Reconciling Web Scraping and Copyright Issues in Model Training by Tom Utum
5th Place - Regulating AI in Healthcare: A Framework for Ethical and Responsible Innovation by Adetayo Adetokun
6th Place - {Untitled Brief} by Fatima Yusuf & Khadija Abdulqadir
7th Place - Balancing Innovation and Ethics of AI Governance in Nigerian Healthcare by Maryjane JohnPedro & Maryann JohnPedro
8th Place - AI Governance in Nigeria's Healthcare Sector by Oghene Jennifer
8th Place - A Framework for Nigeria’s Healthcare AI Governance Policy by Ebuka Jonathan Okwudili
10th Place - AI Integration in Education by Mohammed Al-Ahmeen
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