In and out of Africa

Destiny Amenyedzi is using science and machine learning to solve a global problem.

The native Ghanaian and Ph.D. student at the University of Rwanda is using AudioMoths (highly sensitive microphones) to monitor sounds within farms.

He is specifically studying bird sounds to distinguish which birds are helpful, which are harmful, and what type of sound system can be deployed to keep destructive birds away from crops.

Africa has 25 percent of the world’s bird species, so it is a prime location for this research. However, while African countries may have an abundance of wildlife, they do not have the technologies and research facilities that exist in American universities.

That’s why Amenyedzi is conducting his research at RIT. He is one of three African Ph.D. students here through the Partnership for Skills in Applied Sciences, Engineering, and Technology (PASET). The goal of the program, sponsored by African governments and the World Bank, is to develop skilled professionals in applied sciences, engineering, and technology fields to bolster the continent’s growing needs.

RIT joined PASET in 2023. It is the latest African partnership for the university in a 20-year history of involvement in research and relationships across the continent.

Africa is rich in natural resources and contains one of the most diverse ecosystems across the globe. The Sahara Desert itself is larger than the continental United States. With all the unique landscapes, wildlife, and growing urban areas, more than 30 RIT faculty have recognized the importance of traveling to the continent, all backed by RIT Global.

“I think our academic and research portfolio may be better suited than any other U.S. university to support countries across Africa as their economies grow and as they work to solve challenges of sustainability,” said Jim Myers, associate provost for International Education and Global Programs. “Our strengths in computing, imaging, engineering, and artificial intelligence (AI) are emerging as critical to the growth of African economies. RIT has a unique opportunity to make a substantial impact on the continent.”

In addition to that, the African population is booming. According to the United Nations, by 2030, two-thirds of the world’s population under the age of 25 will be in Africa. The increase of youthful population across the continent means the next wave of great scientists and thinkers could come from there—and RIT wants those students on its campus.

Enrollment of African students at RIT has grown in the past decade, from 64 students in 2015 to 104 from 25 different countries in 2023. That is a trend the university hopes to keep.

“These students are critically important to us in terms of the intellectual capacity that they bring to the university,” said Myers. “These are some of the best and brightest students in the world, and we are fortunate to have many of them coming to study at RIT.”

Early partnerships

RIT’s connection to Africa was propelled forward when Rwandan physics professor Manasse Mbonye left RIT to become a vice rector at the University of Rwanda. He guided students, with the help of the Rwandan government, to study in RIT’s imaging science graduate program.

Tony Vodacek, a professor in the Chester F. Carlson Center for Imaging Science, visited Africa with Mbonye in 2008 and kept in touch with Mbonye once he left. The two discussed how Vodacek’s environmental remote sensing research could be applied in Africa.

Vodacek has witnessed Africa’s diversity and rise for decades. After living in Nigeria for a year or so when he was a child, he always wanted to find his way back to Africa. The 2008 trip opened the door to many more research opportunities in the years to follow.

“That first trip was kind of an administrative visit in a way to establish connections,” explained Vodacek. “Out of that came various research projects.”

Those projects have included monitoring a major lake in Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo for deadly gases, traveling to a remote rainforest in Madagascar as part of a Seneca Park Zoo research team, and, most recently, visiting Kenya to use AudioMoths to listen for elephants.

Vodacek remains closely involved in all of RIT’s African partnerships. He is Amenyedzi’s adviser in the PASET program.

“The population is very young and there is a lot of pressure on the natural resources there,” he said. “Technology can help us understand what’s going on and help with the management of that. There are a number of African students who are working on projects where they really want to make an impact for the development of their country.”

Vodacek has also been instrumental in getting other RIT faculty members involved in African research.

About the same time Vodacek was making his first forays on the continent, Ernest Fokoue was starting as a professor in the School of Mathematics and Statistics at RIT.

A native of the Republic of Cameroon, Fokoue grew up surrounded by math, and he was not the only one of his siblings to become a mathematician and professor. In 2017, he traveled back to Africa shortly after RIT became a leading partner with the African Centres of Excellence (ACE). These are World Bank-funded programs to address higher level skills development needs in the continent’s priority development sectors, including science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM).

Vodacek has been closely involved in the Internet of Things ACE program while Fokoue is involved with data science.

In a quest to find the next Einstein, Fokoue also started working with the African Institute of Mathematical Sciences, teaching courses in data science and participating in conferences.

“For me as an African, it’s a good way to give back to Africa. It’s a win-win for everyone,” said Fokoue. “Momentum is shifting in Africa. AI and cloud computing are the equalizers. I am so glad that my university is trying to reach out and make the most of this.”

Relevant research

Not long after Amenyedzi arrived in Rochester during the spring 2024 semester, he and Vodacek went to the Seneca Park Zoo to set up AudioMoths around different animal enclosures to see if the animals would react during April’s total solar eclipse.

Once sounds are captured with the devices, the researchers use advanced software to target different wavelengths. Some animals make sounds at frequencies that can’t be heard in the natural environment, so separating and adjusting those frequencies makes them audible and able to be studied.

Amenyedzi is using the software to study AudioMoth information from different bird species and is then using machine learning to build a system to scare harmful birds away. He is taking full advantage of the experts here in the U.S. until he returns to Africa at the beginning of 2025.

His research is based in Rwanda but has the potential to be used in his home country of Ghana and around the world.

“We can use machine learning to train a model that will be able to identify ones that eat the crops, and whenever it detects those birds, it will trigger a system to play a scaring sound to drive them away,” explained Amenyedzi. “It will reduce the impact of yield loss.”

Amenyedzi’s fellow PASET scholars are also utilizing RIT’s technology to work on projects that will improve their home continent.

Francisco Pinto, who is from Mozambique and studying at the Institut International d’Ingénierie de l’Eau et de l’Environnement in Burkina Faso, is researching how to optimize the gasification generated by briquettes made from sawdust and biomass in an attempt to recycle waste products into usable fuel.

Promise Agbedanu, a Ghanaian Ph.D. student at the University of Rwanda, is working on self-learning anomaly detection for the Internet of Things. His research in machine learning is an advanced approach to identify unusual patterns or outliers in data.

From ACE to PASET, RIT hopes to aid these past, current, and future initiatives and give young Africans all the tools needed to make their home countries thrive.

Amenyedzi is uniquely positioned to share his experience with the next set of students and encourage the growth of cross-continent partnerships.

“I am getting a broader view of what goes into research,” said Amenyedzi. “It is an amazing environment because everyone is willing to support and I’m able to find what I need. My passion is to disseminate knowledge, so I’m going back to teach and give students the experience so they can also bring in some other ideas that could be used to improve upon our lives in whatever field they find themselves in.”