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Research: Covenant University Partners OBTranslate®

To model and preserve over 500 (spoken or written) Nigerian languages.



Friday, April 14, 2023

The Covenant University in Nigeria has partnered with OBTranslate® to undertake research and development activities in a broad range of areas.

The Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) between the two parties covers Machine Translation (MT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Natural Language Processing (NLP), and linguistics for OBTranslate® scientists to further develop the “OBTranslate” machine translation and Generative AI platform.

This is contained in a joint statement issued on Sunday by the Vice-Chancellor of the university, Prof. Abiodun Adebayo, and the Founder/Chief Executive Officer of OpenBinacle Group, Mr. Emmanuel Gabriel, in Ota, Ogun State.

OBTranslate® also known as "OpenBinacle Translate" is a subsidiary of OpenBinacle Group®. It is a deep learning company that has developed an online CAT (Computer Assisted Translation) tool, Neural Machine Translation (NMT), and AI platform for over 2,000 African and European languages ("OBTranslate"). It also aimed to bridge language barriers on the African continent and globally.

The statement quoted Prof. Abiodun Adebayo, the Vice-Chancellor of the university, saying that the "constructive partnership is a welcome development" as the institution, a world-class university driven by a compelling vision of raising a new generation of leaders in all fields of human endeavors, is currently the best higher education destination in Africa and a reference point for its unique pedagogy, innovative curriculum, cutting-edge research engagements, community service emphasis, and administrative excellence.

Adebayo said the university's departure philosophy and pillars are deeply rooted in Biblical principles and are directed towards effecting change in the recovery process of Nigeria's education sector and the restoration of the dignity of the Blackman.

Photograph


Front row:

Prof. Abiodun H. Adebayo (Vice-Chancellor) - middle, Prof. Olujide Adekeye (Deputy Vice-Chancellor) - immediate right, Mrs Tobi Aruoriwo-Regina (Acting Registrar) - immediate left, Mr Akinbamiro Akinniyi - COO/CMO - OpenBinacle (W/Africa) - extreme right, Mr Uchenna Olufemi-Nwanze - Business Development & Strategy (OpenBinacle Nigeria) - extreme left.

Back row:

The Covenant University committee (OBTranslate AI/MT Research and Development), Prof. Funke Oladipupo – Committee Chairperson (Prof. of Artificial Intelligence and Data Management, Department of Computer Science, Covenant University), Prof. Evans Osabuohien (Professor of Economics & Head of Department), Dr Isaac Akinwumi (Director, International Office, and Linkages), Prof. Emmanuel Adetiba (HoD, Electrical & Information Engineering), Dr Jonathan Oluranti (Head of CIS), Pastor Olugbenga Kiki (Director, Financial Services).


Covenant University is currently ranked among the best universities in the world in teaching, research, and impact. In the 2023 Times Higher Education (THE) World University Rankings, the Covenant ranked 562 globally in research and was adjudged as Nigeria's best research university.

It also ranked Top 400 globally in 2022 THE SDGs Impact Rankings and placed Top 200 globally in Emerging Economies Rankings in 2022 by Times Higher Education. Covenant became the first African University to win the International Sustainable Campus Network (ISCN) Award in 9 Years under the Whole Systems Approach with her PET City Bricks Submission in 2021.

It was equally adjudged as Africa's Best World Class Private Varsity of the Decade in Quality Education Award and received the United Nations Award as Climate Champion in 2022, among other validating awards that point to the research prowess of the University.

Research has been central to Covenant University's twin missions of offering solutions to critical societal problems and being a leading global educational institution. These ambitions are intimately linked, and their innovations have benefited the country's health, economy, and political processes and made Covenant increasingly prominent.

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Introducing OBTranslate® (NMT / GPT-1 / NLP playground), OpenBinacle's most advanced AI system.



Friday, March 3, 2023

A decentralized cloud for artificial intelligence.
Releasing v1 of OpenBinacle GPT-1 and NMT

OBTranslate® neural machine translation (MT/GPT-1) platform is optimized on over 2 billion tokens, which could surpass most 100B+ parameter models in classification. It is formed and trained with a decentralised algorithm with an interconnection of 1 Gbps, contrary to the typical data centre networks of 100Gbps-1.6Tbps.

We are working hard to bring computation power together to support the open models ecosystem, while developing decentralized training algorithms for heterogeneous GPU hardwares connected over slow (1Gbps) internet links.

We are building state-of-the-art models that are much larger, that can outperforms many 100B+ parameter models on classification benchmarks.

Our AI models, known as Large Language Models (LLMs), are very complex and expensive to train. These models are typically trained in specialized clusters featuring fast, homogeneous interconnects and using carefully designed software systems that support both data parallelism and model/pipeline parallelism. Training foundation models, such as OBTranslate® GPT and MT can be extremely expensive, often involving tens of thousands of GPUs running continually for months.The server costs required to train these models run into hundreds of thousands of dollars.

OBTranslate GTP-1 is a state-of-the-art generative AI model based on the Transformer architecture. Our Transformer architecture is a special kind of neural network.

The OBTranslate GTP-1 generative AI model is inherently good at generating text based on given inputs. Depending on your input, you can tell your AI model to do different things. For example, you can ask the model to classify text, extract specific entities from text, summarize large pieces of content, paraphrase some content, answer questions, and of course act as a chatbot.

OBTranslate® is the largest machine translation (MT) system in the world. It has evolved since its first inception in the Spring of 2019. Leading us to the development of version 1.1.1 during the Summer of 2020, and is currently in its latest version (1.9.6), with major portions of code that are efficient and easy to maintain.

Presently, we are working towards version 2.5.0, which will denote major changes in the architecture, the components, and "neural models". The new version is tailored to understand a larger dataset of languages on the universal free text and speech translator.

OBMeet® partners with Verve International to unlock new opportunities.



July 16, 2021

OBMeet® also known as "OpenBinacle Meet", is a hybrid telecommunication, video conference, multistreaming, and network video broadcasting company, today announces a new partnership with Verve International - a Nigerian Pan-African and multinational financial technology and payment card brand owned by Interswitch Group.

Our focus is to give everyone around the world; the opportunity to connect, build ideas and express them in a new way. We are focused on creating economic value via the OBMeet® communication platforms that bridges communication gap & language barriers around the world. We simply want most (spoken or written) 2000+ languages to talk to each other seamlessly.

Solely based on word of mouth and referral, OBMeet® has achieved a tremendous growth rate of 400% and has seen unique user acquisition in just a short time.

OBMeet® beta version was launched and officially registered as a subsidiary of OpenBinacle Group in December 2020. We have received massive cloud infrastructure by the biggest telecommunication company in Germany "Deutsch Telekom" going towards locally establishing and building up OBMeet® capabilities to set up or access to data centers such as a purpose-built one or dedicated space. OBMeet® is ideally pursuing a data center in Africa with a disaster recovery remote site, minimum Tier 3 data center certification, preferably Tier 4.

In a recent statement the OpenBinacle Group CEO, Emmanuel Gabriel, said; "OBMeet has been designed not only as a communication tool but also as a platform to unlock socio-economic prosperity for both developed and developing nations. We are currently integrating our cutting edge neural machine translation (NMT) and voice recognition features from our other products, OBTranslate®, it will set a new benchmark for what borderless communication and collaboration really means"

OBMeet® was utilized as the online video conferencing platform during the Nigeria's Hope Horizon in Lagos organized by CT Productions, HR Leaders Roundtable in Botswana, Orange Telecom, Botswana. OBMeet received a generous amount of positive feedback and reviews by Mr. Goboletswe Sepapane, one of the technical partners for the event:

"I am so impressed with the scale and performance of OBMeet video conferencing at over 8 hours, no glitches, no breakdown on our infrastructure, it is truly a great platform."

The adaptability of OBMeet as a platform in applications such as Telemedicine, Edutech, Governance, FinTech, AgroTech etc. has also garnered the interest of government institutions across various countries.

OBMeet® is fully available as an on-demand product in over 280 countries. It offers a 60Mins free version with a room capacity of 70 people in a single conference. To get started, visit the website: www.obmeet.com, register your account, create a room and share your room link to invite your friends, colleagues, or clients for high video or voice meetings.

OBMeet® also offers specialized offerings for Enterprise clients, which includes; dedicated hosting, cloud recording, Whitelabel, dedicated H.264 HLS multistreaming to more than 30 streaming channels, unlimited storage, whiteboarding, AES-256 Bit Encryption, dedicated IT support, unlimited meetings with up to 100,000 participants and more.

OBMeet is currently open to investments and partnership opportunities. OBMeet Affiliate Programme will be announced shortly. You can learn more about the OBMeet® platform via the website, www.obmeet.com

Interestingly, Mike Ogbalu III saw this way back and predicted it was going to happen. Today, that thought is materializing.

Read Mike Ogbalu's comment