Sponsoring as a Company
Please refer to our sponsorship packages below. For individuals or smaller support, consider donating here.
Why the ACVSS ? Despite its significance for African communities, research in computer vision is little unexplored on the continent, contributing only 0.06% to top-tier publications. Recognizing Africa’s immense potential and ongoing efforts to cultivate expertise in emerging technologies, the development of skills and knowledge in computer vision becomes a pivotal step. To address this gap, the first African Computer Vision Summer School (ACVSS) unites outstanding African students and established AI scientist leaders. While major international AI events have recently occurred on the African continent, including initiatives like Deep Learning Indaba (DLI), there is currently no significant Computer Vision events on the continent. ACVSS emerges as a means to offer equitable access to foundational and advanced computer vision algorithms.
Outline. The 10-day summer school features top-notch computer vision speakers from MIT, Google, DAIR, Inria, etc. who will teach a carefully selected group of students chosen based on merit and diversity from across Africa. The on-site educational program will include lectures, practicals, and research keynotes, with the first edition planned for about 30 students. The location will vary annually within Africa, with the inaugural edition in Kenya. Beside state-of-the-art computer vision, the curriculum emphasize is placed on the importance of ethical AI and issues related to bias, fairness, and diversity.
Organizers and advisors. The committee (see People) comprises leading researchers from distinguished academic labs and major tech industries, bringing experiences in organizing African events like multiple Deep Learning Indaba and WSCV edition, along with other international venues, including multiple CVPR Workshops and the CRV conference.
Evidence of impact. Intiatives like Black in AI are present in major conferences, including NeurIPS and CVPR, and demonstrated a positive impact and highlighted the potential of the African community. However, existing talent support is out of reach for many Africans as travel is extremely costly given local wage levels. Hence, to exist this summer school must provide financial support for students, which goes in addition to the usual costs.
We will quantify the short and long-term impact through surveys and studies.
Sponsorship and funding inquiries. Please reach out to the funding committee acvss-funding@googlegroups.com.
We can provide a detailed budget and financial model. The support tiers are listed below.
FAQ
What is the Masakhane Research Foundation?
Masakhane Research Foundation is our fiscal sponsor and therefore they are responsible for handling all donations that will be used exclusively for the African Computer Vision Summer School.
They are a Kenyan-based non-profit organization whose mission is to promote research in natural language processing (NLP) for African languages.
Will I be acknowledged as a donor ?
It's up to you. Shortly after your donation, you will receive an email offering the option for your name to be mentioned on our webpage.
As a company, if you donate more than $2,500 you will qualify as an official sponsor of ACVSS and may have a logo on our page along with other benefits detailed in our sponsoring packages.
How ACVSS will use the donations ?
All donations will be used to fund scholarships and travel grants for ACVSS attendees, making the summer school accessible to a wider range of people.
As an estimate, a fully funded participant costs around $1,700. This amounts to about $1,000 for travel and $700 for scholarship grant (accommodation, attendance, meals) on average.
We are also funding almost all teaching assistants and speakers to come on-site.
Can I wire transfer my donation ? Can I donate bigger amount ?
You can. For details, please contact us at acvss-funding@googlegroups.com.
Do donations lead to tax deductions or tax credits?
While this might be the case, we cannot guarantee this will lead to any tax cuts for you, as this is dependent on the fiscal law applying to you.
Masakhane is a Kenyan-based Non-Profit Organisation. To verify whether you can benefit from tax cuts or not (deductions or credits) please contact your fiscal services and feel free to contact us as well, and we will follow up with our accountant at Masakhane Research Foundation.