AARC Values & Mission

Our Mission

Why AARC exists

The world is experiencing a rapid rise in interest and expertise in machine learning, artificial intelligence, and robotics — and Africa is no different. Initiatives such as the Deep Learning Indaba demonstrate the strength, talent, and momentum of African researchers and practitioners. Across universities, startups, research labs, and innovation hubs, new communities are forming and producing world-class work. Robotics is a natural next frontier for this growing ecosystem.

Despite this progress, significant gaps remain. Many aspiring roboticists still face limited access to hardware, software, funding, training, and research opportunities. At the same time, there is a lack of connectivity between individuals and groups working on robotics across the continent, making collaboration, mentorship, and shared learning more difficult than they should be.

Through Akili, we aim to build a connected, empowered, and globally visible African robotics community which uses shared knowledge and collective "mind" to solve local and global challenges.

Accessibility

Across much of Africa, talented researchers and students are limited not by ideas or ability, but by unequal access to the resources that robotics and AI require — hardware, compute, software, mentorship, and funding. Accessibility is not only about availability of resources, but about ensuring that talented individuals, regardless of geography or institutional affiliation, can meaningfully participate in robotics research and development.

We place particular emphasis on supporting under-resourced institutions, rural communities, and historically marginalised groups. We aim to promote access to hardware and software by connecting those with needs to those with the necessary robots, compute, and technology — including securing free credits for GPU access, LLM usage, or cloud storage, facilitating research stays at institutions with physical robots, and working with academic institutions and companies to secure access to funding for those pursuing research or further studies in robotics.

Community

Community is so central to AARC that it is included in the name of our organisation. While initiatives such as the Deep Learning Indaba have started to connect researchers and practitioners, there is still a great deal of untapped networking potential — especially for the field of intelligent robotics.

Our aim is to foster a community of roboticists — students, teachers, researchers, and practitioners — across the continent and beyond. In the short term, our goal is to create a platform where community members can share knowledge and opportunities, and organically grow collaborations across borders. We also aim to facilitate formal collaborations through academic projects, research stays, and industry partnerships, and to elevate African voices on the global stage by improving representation in robotics conferences and competitions.

Education

Education is the foundation on which a strong and sustainable robotics ecosystem must be built. Across Africa, there is growing interest in robotics, AI, and intelligent systems, yet many learners lack clear pathways into the field. Without deliberate efforts to build skills and mentorship pipelines, much of the continent's potential risks going unrealised.

We aim to support learners at every stage of their journey: introducing young students to robotics, empowering beginners with practical skills, and enabling advanced researchers to thrive in global academic and industrial environments. Through outreach events, school visits, workshops (such as those held annually at the Deep Learning Indaba), and educational seminars, we lower barriers to entry and help participants gain practical, transferable skills. We also assist community members in finding fellowships, internships, graduate placements, and research stays both within Africa and overseas.

History

Foundation of the Organisation

The AARC began as a committee invested in developing robotics workshops and events for the benefit of African roboticists. The first workshop was held at the 2023 Deep Learning Indaba in Ghana, and has seen successful iterations each year since. The workshops have enabled attendees to engage with hands-on robotics tutorials from a beginner level — covering perception, ML with robotics, and human-robot interaction — with partnerships and guest speakers from leading organisations including the Brown IRL, Google, and Nvidia.

In 2024, the committee was invited to host the ICRA@40 — Africa conference, a satellite event for one of the largest robotics conferences in the world. The organisation has grown from strength to strength: the latest workshop received feedback from over 50 attendees across more than 21 countries, indicating strong interest in future topics and in being part of a continental robotics organisation.