ENGAGE — Enabling Girls in AI and Data Science, Kenya's Public-Health-Focused AI Training Pathway

ENGAGE (Enabling Girls in AI and Growing Expertise) is a data-science and AI training pathway for underserved Kenyan girls and young women, led by the University of Nairobi's Institute of Tropical and Infectious Diseases (UNITID) with CEMASTEA, the UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences, and a consortium of Kenyan universities. It targets Form Three secondary-school girls with strong mathematics aptitude across six, primarily rural, regions, including a Teachers Service Commission-backed cohort in Migori County.

The programme aims to build a tiered pipeline of AI and data-science skills for public-health research among girls and young women who are otherwise underrepresented in STEM, moving participants from an introductory secondary-school level through STEM diploma training to advanced research training.

Training is delivered in three tiers: 480 secondary-school girls receive an introduction to AI and data science; 270 young women pursuing STEM diplomas receive intermediate training; and 135 women receive advanced training in data science, machine learning and AI for public-health research. The UCSF Institute for Global Health Sciences received a $1 million contract through the University of Nairobi as part of an approximately $5.5 million award from Takeda Pharmaceuticals.

As of publication, programme materials describe participant numbers (800+ girls and young women across the three tiers) and curriculum design in detail, but do not yet report learning-outcome or skills-assessment data, since the tiered training was still being rolled out.

ENGAGE demonstrates a structured, multi-institution funding and delivery model for scaling AI/data-science training to underserved girls, but its actual learning impact remains unmeasured pending completion of the rollout.