The African Centre of Excellence in Internet of Things (ACEIoT) has secured a grant of $540,000 from the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC) to establish the Transformative Artificial Intelligence Research and Innovation Lab (TAIRI Lab), starting in January 2025.
The TAIRI Lab will be hosted at the College of Science and Technology under the African Centre of Excellence in Internet of Things (ACEIoT). It will collaborate with experts in artificial intelligence, agriculture, health, urban planning, and environmental sciences from various colleges and public institutions across Rwanda and beyond.
The lab is part of the Artificial Intelligence for Development (AI4D) program, which aims to foster safe, inclusive, and responsible AI ecosystems that empower individuals and accelerate progress in addressing global development challenges.
Professor Damien Hanyurwimfura, the Principal Investigator of the project, highlighted that the lab will enhance the capacity of AI experts and practitioners to develop and implement responsible AI solutions tailored to local needs. These solutions include AI-powered healthcare tools, climate-resilient agricultural planning models, and air pollution forecasting systems.
“This will be achieved by improving the understanding of responsible and inclusive AI practices for multidisciplinary innovation in Rwanda, enhancing capacity building, strengthening inter-laboratory collaboration, and shaping AI policy and practice,” he stated.
The project’s implementation involves a wide range of stakeholders in Rwanda, including Carnegie Mellon University Africa (CMU), the Rwanda Information System Authority (RISA), Kigali City, the Rwanda Environment Management Authority (REMA), the ICT Chamber, and the Centre for the Fourth Industrial Revolution (C4IR). International collaborators include the RAIL Lab in Ghana and other AI labs within the AI4D network across Africa and beyond.
The primary objective of the TAIRI Lab is to explore the transformative, multidisciplinary potential of artificial intelligence (AI) in addressing key sustainable development challenges in Rwanda.
As part of the initiative, the project will fund research for five master’s and five PhD students, focusing on critical AI-related topics.
