· Minister of Communication and Postal Services
· President of the Adrien HOUNGBEDJI Foundation for Digital Technology, Youth and Artificial Intelligence (FAHNJIA), Maître Adrien HOUNGBEDJI
· President of the Vallet Foundation
· Director of the Francophone Agency for Artificial Intelligence (AFRIA)
· Ladies and gentlemen, in your respective ranks and capacities,
· Distinguished guests
I would like to begin by thanking the Adrien HOUNGBEDJI Foundation for Digital Technology, Youth and Artificial Intelligence for involving the ministry under my responsibility in the Foundation’s 2020 Digital Holidays, and for inviting me to this opening ceremony being held today in this prestigious hall.
I wish to thank the President of the Foundation, President Adrien HOUNGBEDJI, for launching such a programme, with the support of his teams and partners.
Beninese youth are fortunate to benefit from the opportunity you are offering them today to be among the privileged few of our time who, when it comes to artificial intelligence, will know more than the average inhabitant of this planet.
Please accept our thanks.
Dear pupils, dear students, dear young people,
Do you know Sophia?
I met Sophia in October 2018 at the Francophonie Economic Forum in Yerevan, Armenia. She is one of the most intelligent robots in the world, a realistic humanoid modelled on the actress Audrey Hepburn, designed to interact with humans and to learn from that interaction in order to improve. Sophia speaks, answers, asks questions, tells jokes and displays extraordinary conversational knowledge.
Sophia is a concentration of artificial intelligence technologies such as speech recognition, visual data processing, facial recognition, deep learning, cloud computing and much more.
In the digital revolution sweeping the world, artificial intelligence holds a prominent place and drives economic and sovereignty dynamics that make it an essential field. For a country in the course of digital development like ours, it is important to understand that there are real economic stakes behind AI.
This has not escaped the President of the Republic, President Patrice Talon, and that is why, under his leadership, Benin has undertaken to develop a national strategy on big data and the development of artificial intelligence.
The aim is not to produce a utopian strategy, far removed from our realities and concerns, but rather to define a bold and astute vision and strategy centred on technological solutions adapted to our national needs (education, health, agriculture, living environment, tourism, transport, defence, e-government, e-business), and on understanding the use cases applicable to our context.
Dear young people,
You can understand why I welcome this Digital Holidays project, which is about to introduce you to artificial intelligence. This introduction to artificial intelligence will enable you to understand the concept in all its aspects and dimensions, to grasp the extent to which you can play a role in it and in which languages, and also to learn about the stakes and opportunities of this revolution.
Sooner or later, you will have to choose your career, and this introduction may convince you to consider a career linked to this fascinating field, like my Ivorian friend Fatim Cissé, an HR and economics specialist, who is today an African reference in AI thanks to her company, which makes it easier for African businesses to access services and products based on artificial intelligence.
I therefore invite you to take an interest in the various sessions and to take part in them with curiosity and a willingness to learn, so that you can make the concepts taught your own.
With these words, I declare open the 2020 Digital Holidays of the Adrien HOUNGBEDJI Foundation for Digital Technology, Youth and Artificial Intelligence.
Thank you.