A new suite of educational tools to embed Google DeepMind’s no cost online global curriculum on how to build and fine tune Large Language Models (LLMs) across Africa has been developed by University College London (UCL) and the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences (AIMS).
The AI Research Foundations Toolkit augments Google’s existing online curriculum to create a university-level blended learning module that lecturers anywhere can adapt and deliver in their own contexts.
With Google.org’s support and developed through workshops with educators, students, and researchers from across the continent, including Mali, Zambia, South Africa, Kenya, Somalia, Nigeria, Ghana, and Namibia, the toolkit builds on UCL and AIMS’s ongoing work with Google DeepMind to democratize access to AI education through AI Research Foundations, a suite of free, globally accessible online courses which teach the latest in generative AI and LLMs.
While Africa accounts for roughly 20% of the global population, less than 2% of global AI research originates from the continent. This initiative addresses this imbalance by equipping African academics to lead the delivery of cutting-edge AI and machine learning instruction within their own institutions.
The toolkit combines technical training in generative AI and large language models (LLMs) with interactive, student-centred activities covering ethics, governance, environmental justice, and societal impact.
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The toolkit puts a central emphasis on a responsible approach to AI development by integrating technical learning in AI and machine learning, with activities from the fields of sociology, philosophy, and ethics.
Project Sponsor and the AI Director at AIMS Professor Ulrich Paquet said:
“Teaching AI is a wonderful challenge, as it is truly interdisciplinary. It stretches from mathematical rigor to social responsibility, and from technical details to applied solutions. Working with UCL has resulted in a toolkit that focuses on equipping students to build, shape, and govern the technology of tomorrow. The toolkit was designed to be malleable, so that educators can adapt it to suit their own unique needs. Students in many cultural contexts will experience the joy of becoming AI researchers in their own right.”
Project Director Matthew Seren Smith (UCL Engineering Sciences) said:
“By grounding the toolkit in local contexts through our collaboration with AIMS, we decentralized it. The inclusion of regional case studies does not restrict the materials but is the mechanism that makes them accessible to all. It creates space for educators to inject their own language, culture, and local challenges, ensuring students see themselves in the future of AI.”
Project Manager at AIMS Michael Alummoottil said:
“African students often arrive with a deep, intuitive understanding of responsibility, growing up in societies where community values dominate. AIMS brings together specialists from across South Africa, Nigeria, Sudan, and Madagascar; by combining this deep technical expertise with an on-the-ground understanding of African STEM education, we ensured these tools are built directly around the practical realities of our classrooms.”
The toolkit features:
- Over 50 Hours of adaptable classroom resources: Fully resourced technical and responsible AI activities, including lesson plans, coding notebooks, lecture slides, and localized case studies.
- Co-designed for local realities: Structured using feedback from African university teachers and students to ensure accessibility across varying class sizes, bandwidth levels, and physical teaching environments.
- Integrative blended learning: Connects Google DeepMind’s free online foundational AI courses with active, classroom-based group discussion, collaboration, and problem-based learning.
- Technical and ethical rigor: Bridges technical machine learning concepts with sociology, philosophy, and ethics to develop responsible AI developers.
Project Sponsor Professor John Mitchell (UCL Electronic and Electrical Engineering) said:
“True innovation happens when diverse minds meet. By uniting UCL’s commitment to responsible values with the African Institute of Mathematics and Sciences (AIMS) and their in-depth experiences of local practitioners, we have co-created a contextually relevant AI Research Foundations Toolkit that will shape impactful, ethical AI researchers for years to come.”
The toolkit is freely available to educators worldwide and will be distributed across academic networks through AIMS.
The project has brought together academics and teams from across UCL, including UCL Engineering, UCL Computer Science, UCL Institute of Education, UCL Science and Technology Studies and UCL Consultants.
