News

Nigerian Student, Others Develop Medical App For Diagnosis

Published

1 year ago

April 20, 2023

Editor

Nigerian students in different parts of the world keep making impressive strides in different disciplines.

Couple of weeks ago, Tony Okeke, 20, who was the winner of the 2018 edition of the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation, NNPC, National Science Quiz and presently studying Biomedical Engineering in Drexel University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA, collaborated with five other international students (four Nigerians and one Indian) to develop an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Medical Assistance App, which they named ‘Meddibia’.

Okeke’s team, named, ‘Team Meddibia’, comprises Okeke, Dishika Goel, Elochukwu Enwerem, Dalu Okonkwo, Michael Moemeke and Victor Uzo.

The team’s project, ‘Meddibia’, was one of the ten AI projects that won at the Philly Codefest 2023, a contest that took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, USA during the 10th year of the software and hardware hackathon hosted by College of Computing & Informatics, Drexel University, Philadelphia.

Explaining how difficult it was for the panel of judges ot determine the winners, Dave Raiken, Assistant Director of Operations, said the 46 teams that took part, presented great technical projects that aligned with the theme: AI Everywhere— that is, “real-world, scalable software and hardware solutions to improve and expand artificial intelligence’s positive societal impacts.”

Presenting their project on behalf of his team, Okeke explained: “The inspiration behind our latest project came from a deep desire to improve the accessibility of medical care for people living in rural areas.

“As developers from third-world countries, we understood all too well the struggles faced by those who lack access to proper medical facilities.

“Our team wanted to create a solution that would bridge the gap between these individuals and medical professionals, so we set out to create an app that would allow users to receive medical advice and diagnoses using machine learning models.”

What it does

Meddibia is a personal AI health assistant that puts greater control over health in the hands of users living in rural communities. With it, users can describe their symptoms to a chat assistant and receive a likely diagnosis, along with more information about their diagnosis and symptoms.

Additionally, it enables users to get diagnosis for skin conditions and aberrations by simply taking a picture of the affected area. This feature is especially important for those with limited access to healthcare professionals or specialized facilities. By providing personalized care and making it easier to manage health conditions, Meddibia empowers users to take control of their health and improve their quality of life.

How it was built

To accurately identify skin conditions, the team experimented with various pre-trained models, including VGG16 and EfficientNet, to extract features from images from the dermnet dataset.

They then trained and evaluated deep neural network classifiers, ultimately selecting a model with approximately 70% accuracy. For symptom identification, they employed GPT-3, a state-of-the-art language model, to preprocess natural language input from users into symptom labels, which served as input to our machine-learning model.

This approach resulted in about 87% accuracy in predicting disease labels. To further assist users, and used GPT-3 to provide helpful descriptions of the predicted disease. The app’s backend was built using Flask API and deployed on Heroku, while the cross-platform frontend was developed using Flutter, making our app easily accessible to users across multiple devices.

News

Shettima Launches NEDC’s School Enrollment Drive Programme

Published

8 hours ago

May 18, 2024

Editor

Vice President Kashim Shettima has launched the Accelerated Senior Secondary School Education Programme (ASSEP) initiated by the North-East Development Commission (NEDC) in collaboration with the office of the VP to enhance child enrollment drive in schools within the North-East sub-region.

Speaking during the launching of the programme in Bauchi on Saturday, the VP said that consequences of the nation’s action and inaction were evident in all indices used to assess development.

He said while primary education provides a foundation, secondary education is a bridge, adding that the Northeast sub-region has been the victim of inability to enforce a uniform policy to drive school and the persistent cultural perversion to formal education in the country.

“We in the Northeast occupy a quantum of position in ranking of essential services. Education being a key sector of this country, this is especially pronounced in the post primary education, while the Northeast secondary school enrollment drive stands at 19 percent, far below the nation’s 39 percent,” he said.

Earlier, the Managing Director of NEDC, Mohammed Alkali, said that the primary education completion level of 85 per cent in the Northeast is among the best in Nigeria, but secondary school enrolment is a mere 15 per cent, the second worst nationally.

According to him, due to the challenges in the post-primary education segment, JAMB UTME applications and admissions into tertiary institutions in 2019 were the lowest for the Northeast compared to other regions.

He added that, nationally, the Northeast has the lowest number of teachers and the highest percentage 55 per cent of those available are without literacy skills.

The MD also revealed that the challenges in the post-primary education segment include weak quality indices and a wide demand-supply gap driven by economic and cultural factors.

“The Accelerated Senior Secondary Education Programme seeks to boost the post primary education rating across the North East region through improved enrolment into tertiary institutions.

“It’s also to improve skills development as well as the elevation of teacher quality. It would pay special focus on Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics and communication.

“These would foster creativity and critical thinking; motivates and inspires young people to generate new technologies and ideas to learn from inquiry-based tasks,” he said.

Alkali also explained that the programme would also raise awareness about after-school possibilities and the potential for diligent students to become successful and prominent contributors to the North East region and Nigeria at large.

He expressed gratitude to the Federal Government especially, the Vice President for the deep interest and commitment to human development in the North-East.

News

Edo Police Break Silence On Operatives Fighting Dirty In Viral Video

Published

8 hours ago

May 18, 2024

Editor

By Joseph Ebi Kanjo

The Edo State Police Command says a trending video showing two operatives of the command engaging in a fight is a handiwork of mischief makers.

In the video which has gone viral on the internet, two policemen are seen fighting themselves, while a voice commentary in the background claims they are from the Igueben Decisional Police Station headquarters in the state.

A writeup also attached to a version of the video sighted by Info Daily also claims that the policemen were fighting because of sharing formula of money collected from motorists on the highway. The writeup also claims that the incident happened yesterday, May 17th, 2024.

But reacting to the viral video in a statement issued by SP Chidi Nwabuzor, Police Public Relations Officer, the command said contrary to the claim, the incident happened in 2020, adding that disciplinary measures were taken against the erring policemen.

The statement which issued electronically to newsmen in Benin on Saturday evening partly reads: “Edo State Police Command wishes to inform the general public that it’s aware of a video trending on the internet showing two policemen that engaged themselves in a fight in public spaces and wishes to state as follows that;

“The now trending video happened in April 2020 in a community called Ebelle in the Igueben local government area of Edo State.

“The two erring policemen, namely; (i) F/NO.491112 CPL Ozimeade Aidonojie and (ii) F/NO. 516384 PC Salubi Stephen were attached to Ebelle Police Divisional Headquarters.

“They defaulted, tried in an orderly and upon conviction dismissed from the Force for the offence of discreditable conduct contrary to Paragraph ‘E’ Sub Section 111 of the Police Act and Regulations 370 Cap. P19 of Federation of Nigeria 2004.”

Nwabuzor in the statement reiterated the state Commissioner of Police, Funsho Adegboye, commitment to “making Edo State a desired secured state where the law abiding citizens and the general public go about their lawful businesses in making Edo State economic hubs of Nigeria without fear or intimidation.”

News

Excitement, Dance As ‘Looted Ancestral Stools’ Return To Oba Of Benin

Published

9 hours ago

May 18, 2024

Editor

It was a moment of joy, excitement and dance at the palace of the Oba of Benin as the revered monarch, Oba Ewuare II took custody of two looted royal stools from the German government.

They were handed over to the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, NCMM on behalf of the Nigerian government by the German authorities in 2022.

The Director-General of
National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Mr Olugbile Holloway made the presentation on behalf of the Federal Government on Saturday May18, 2024 in Oba of Benin Palace, Benin City.

According to history, the artefacts — Bronze and wooden Royal stools (Ekete), made during the reign of Oba Eresoyen and Oba Esigie several Centuries ago, were looted from Oba Palace during the punitive expedition in 1897.

Addressing the Benin Throne during the presentation of the artefacts, Mr Holloway, pledged on behalf of NCMM, to work-hand-in hand with the Benin Royal Court in uplifting and displaying Edo heritage.

He revealed that as the Benin Bronzes and other art works are gradually making their way home (Nigeria), “NCMM will join hands with the Royal Court to create a befitting destination for people around the world to come and appreciate these works”.

“What you see before us were originally taken away from the Royal family in 1897.

“We have a stool made of Bronze and a wooden stool.

“I speak for every member of my team, to say that we remain loyal to the Royal Court. And if there is anything we can do, we will do to support this laudable initiative.

“This heritage is not just Benin heritage, but Nigeria’s heritage.
When we speak of Benin heritage, there is nobody that doesn’t know the great works of ours.

“I appreciate you, we will always do what we can do with our powers to make His Royal Majesty lineage in memory”, he said.

After unveiling the repatriated Artefacts, Oba of Benin, who danced joyfully to Benin traditional rendition in dramatic dance steps, with excited Chiefs and members of the Royal family, offered prayers to Almighty God and his ancestors.

The traditional ruler, who was visibly overwhelmed with joy, appreciated the German government and the Federal Government and the NCMM leadership for their efforts.

The royal father, thereafter, in a historic move, sat in one of the royal stools (Ekete), and personally presented a chunk of white, which, according to belief, symbolizes peace and blessings to the Director-General of National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Mr Olugbile Holloway.

Oba Ewuare II also prayed for Mr Holloway and his team, accompanied by the Curator, National Museum, Benin, Mr Mark Olaitan, Director, Legal Services, NCMM, Barrister Babatunde Adebiyi on the visit where Royal Drummers gave a good account of their stewardship.