How Abigail Annkah is using AI to improve maps in Africa

As a university student, Abigail Annkah fell in love with mathematics, which soon led to her interest in artificial intelligence. After graduating from the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences, Abigail made it through the competitive process to become an AI resident at Google Research, Accra. After her residency, Google offered her a job and she’s now a research software engineer working on several high-profile projects.As Google grows its presence in Accra, we spoke to Abigail about the mapping project that motivates her, starting a new job while becoming a mother and the importance of inspiring young girls to enter STEM careers.How did your science background lead you to Google?I did my undergraduate degree in Bachelor of Science Statistics at the University of Ghana, finishing with a combined major in Mathematics and Statistics. During the second year of study, I stumbled upon Computational Maths, leading to my first taste of coding. I started taking extra credit courses, which really kickstarted my entry into AI. Then I joined the first cohort of the African Masters of Machine Intelligence program at African Institute for Mathematical Sciences with the support of Google and Facebook. The program intends to bridge the AI education gap in Africa and strengthen the growing data science ecosystem in the region — this was my first exposure to the world of Machine Learning.