About Us
To accomplish this, the DS-I Africa Initiative aims to contribute to the development of the necessary expertise among African scientists, and to establish networks of African investigators.
The vision of DS-I Africa is to create and support a robust pan-continental network of data scientists and technologies that will be equipped to apply advanced data science skills to transform health.
Funders
- DS-I Africa is an NIH Common Fund Initiative
Contributing Institutes, Centres and Offices
- Fogarty International Center
- National Cancer Institute
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute
- National Human Genome Research Institute
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering
- National Institute of Child Health and Human Development
- National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research
- National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
- National Institute of Mental Health
- National Library of Medicine
- Office of Data Science Strategy
- Office of Strategic Coordination (Common Fund)
Program Goals
To advance Data Science and related innovations in Africa to create an ecosystem that can begin to provide local solutions to countries’ most immediate public health problems through advances in research.
Create a pan continental network with broad academic, public, private and industry partnerships.
Enhance Data Science capacity through training toward developing a new generation of interdisciplinary African Data Scientists..
Develop new data collection and analytic systems, applications, and tools with attention to usages that are population-relevant, affordable, acceptable, and scalable.
Advances in policy surrounding ethical issues
Facilitate resource access to the global scientific community. Resources may include medical image repositories to be used as a basis for machine learning.
Establish recognized regional and continental DS Centres of Excellence.
Enable new interdisciplinary collaborations and new scientific knowledge.
Demonstration of the feasibility of advanced DS to improve health in Africa
Our Projects
On this page you will find a list of consortium projects. The consortium consists of a data science platform and coordinating center, seven research hubs, seven data science research training programs and four projects focused on studying the ethical, legal and social implications of data science research.
Working groups
On this page, you will find the list of Working groups, links to the minutes of their meetings and other documentation about the establishment of the working group and its purpose and function.
Training & Education Working Group
Data Management Working Group
Partnerships & Outreach Working Group
- Create networking opportunities with potential partners.
- Provide a forum for consortium members to discuss the challenges to partnerships and strategies for effective collaboration.
Data Governance Working Group
Events
News
- African data scientists gather in Cape Town at major networking conference
- Data Science in Africa (DS-I Africa) Coordinating Centre Team in Kigali, Rwanda to Attend the Data Science Africa Event and Site Visit
- DS-I Africa to Host Sessions at the Prestigious Science Summit at UNGA79 on Advancing Global Health and Climate Action
- Join the DS-I Africa Consortium in Shaping the Future of Data Science in Africa
- Data Scientists from Africa and Their Global Partners Convene in Mauritius for the 4th DS-I Africa Consortium Meeting, November 16 - 22, 2024
DS-I Africa Steering Committee
Membership
Principal investigators, project and data managers from each grant and NIH program staff constitute the Steering Committee membership. Participants are bound by policies and procedures developed by the Steering Committee.
Adoption of such policies and procedures requires a majority vote, each funded project has one vote. The Steering Committee chair and co chair are elected by majority vote, and together with the Coordinating Centre prepares meeting agendas and fulfills all related administrative and management tasks.
Chair: Prof. Chenfeng Xiong
Co-Chair: Dr Joyce Nakatumba-Nabende
TBA
Resources & OutputsDocuments - to follow
Meeting FrequencyOnline - monthly
In-person - Bi-annually rotating to various member countries
Community Engagement
- Community Engagement & Health Information
- Data scientist video series
- Infographics
- Literature
- News
- Data Science Community Toolkit