Quantum Leap Africa (QLA) launched a Doctoral Training Program in Data Science (DTP-DS) at the African Institute for Mathematical Sciences (AIMS) Rwanda in 2021. The program offered up to seven fully funded PhD positions per cohort, with the first cohort of students beginning in October/November 2021. According to the program description, funding came from partnerships with the Government of Rwanda, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, and DeepMind Technologies Limited.
Recruited students were based at AIMS Rwanda in Kigali or at other AIMS centres across Africa, enrolled simultaneously at an AIMS centre and a partnering higher education institution. QLA facilitated international co-supervision partnerships and provided training in research skills and transferable skills. Two of the fully funded positions, offered in partnership with DeepMind, focused on artificial intelligence and machine learning topics.
A separate stream of four PhD positions, “Data Science for Health in Rwanda,” was created in partnership with the University of Rwanda and Washington University in St. Louis under a grant for health discovery and innovation research. That stream was restricted to Rwandan nationals. The DTP-DS continued with additional cohorts in 2022 and 2023, maintaining the same structure and funding partnerships.