We are very proud to announce that the incredible Wuraola Oyewusi is our inaugural Newspread Nigerian of the week. Her deliberate interest in defining IT-related tools in our native Yoruba language showcases some of her incredible work and demonstrates just how deep-rooted she is.
Inspired by her down-to-earth explanation of ChatGPT, Newspread reached out to her and had this fascinating conversation.
In this interview, the pharmacist turned data specialist, who is an Oyo State indigene, sheds light on her interest in AI, big data, and related fields.
- Hey Wuraola, so lovely to meet you, please tell us a bit about you
My name is Wuraola Oyewusi, from Ogbomoso in Oyo State, Nigeria. I am from a family of seven which makes me the last of five siblings.
I graduated as a Pharmacist from Olabisi Onabanjo University in Ogun State and had my secondary school education at Federal Government Girls College, Owinni, Oyo.
My professional experience spans Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Research, and HealthCare. The organizations I have been part of include Imperial College London, Data Science Nigeria, and eHealth Africa Kano, Nigeria.
- We can see from your bio that you are a pharmacist and at the same time a data scientist, do you still practice pharmacy?
No, I don’t practice core pharmacy but in my work as a data scientist, I leverage my understanding of clinical data and experience in healthcare. I can attest that it provides a powerful opportunity to make use of this understanding as I continue to develop my data science career
I am also a Technical Instructor and have been able to share my knowledge and instruction in a number of places, including having created courses with LinkedIn Learning.
- What made you decide to do a short video in Yoruba to explain what ChatGPT is?
The video on ChatGPT is the 21st in my series of videos explaining tech in the Yoruba language. I am a subject matter expert in the technology that powers it and similar tools, and I’m passionate about continuing to increase my knowledge and awareness of the technology. My most recent video published takes on the topic of ‘Voice Assistants’ like Siri and Alexa.
About teaching in Yoruba, it is mostly because I can. I am proficient at it and it’s mostly me having conversations about technical concepts I understand in a language that I speak often.
- What exactly is ChatGPT and how will Nigerians both at home and abroad take advantage of it?
As I mentioned in the video, it’s a tool powered by artificial intelligence (AI), and thus gives incredible opportunities for increased productivity and efficiency in many areas of work and education. Its efficacy has recently taken the world by storm, and as such it’s important for as many people as possible to be aware of the technology and the opportunities it can create for them.
I’d say ChatGPT and similar tools are already in our lives, it’s important to understand how it works and how they can improve our productivity, efficiency, knowledge base, and creativity if used appropriately
- In the tech and data world, how can Nigerians (at home and in the diaspora) position themselves to take advantage of the sector?
The internet is generous and there is no gate, everyone should leverage that. I transitioned careers by learning online so I will say keep searching (I made a couple of videos discussing careers in tech in Yoruba).
It’s important for Nigerians to recognize how fast the world of technology moves and so to take advantage of the opportunities it can give to them.
- Apart from the Yoruba language content that you graciously provided, what other areas have you tried to domesticate technology for the Nigerian audience?
Much of my work in AI research is focused on Nigerian-related data. For example, at my previous role at Data Science Nigeria, our Lab curated datasets like AFRIFASHION1600: A Contemporary African Fashion Dataset for Computer Vision, AFRIFASHION40000: A GAN generated African Fashion Dataset for Computer Vision and a Natural Language Processing work like NaijaNER: Comprehensive Named Entity Recognition for 5 Nigerian Languages and Semantic Enrichment of Nigerian Pidgin English for Contextual Sentiment Classification
- Do you think that using local languages to explain science and technology will help produce more champions in those fields?
I know curiosity and communication transcends English, and that there is so much more to benefit everyone across the world if technology is made available beyond our focus on the English language. Based on the data about my audience, there are those who understand Yoruba but want to improve their understanding of technology, those who understand technology but want to improve Yoruba, those who just enjoy listening even if they understand the two, those who don’t understand either but learn from the subtitles.
- Can this become a cause that you are willing to champion?
Yes, I will say my track record is the championing that I’m interested in continuing to pursue.
Join us in congratulating Wuraola on becoming the very first ‘Newspread Nigerian of the Week’ for her inspiring endeavors in democratizing technology for Nigerians by making accessible explanations available in the Yoruba Language.
Each week the Newspread team will be scouring the globe to bring you a brand new ‘Newspread Nigerian of the week’ doing great things in their space and creating news worth spreading in their area of expertise. Be sure to join us … and if you think you know an amazing Nigerian creating news worth spreading, please reach out to us at nnotw@newspread.ng
Oh, and please connect with and support Wuraola’s work at the social handles below!
YouTube : youtube.com/@wuraoyewusi
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/wuraolaoyewusi
Twitter : twitter.com/wuraoyewusi