The world’s largest technology show, Gitex, which was held in the Dubai World Trade Center from October 10 to 14, saw the official debut of Omeife, Africa’s first humanoid robot.
The Uniccon Group of Companies, one of Nigeria’s fastest-growing technology startups, developed the humanoid robot Omeife. It provides diverse, cutting-edge technology solutions to businesses and government organizations throughout Africa.
Omeife is a female, African humanoid that stands 6 feet tall and offers language as a service to companies looking to reach native African audiences. She is a multifunctional robot that provides assistance. She knows African languages and has been raised with an in-depth knowledge of African culture and behavioral norms.
Omeife
According to Africa.com, here are some more things Omeife is able to do:
Movement
1. Terrain intelligence: Knowing the level of ground and stability of itself on the floor, this will help it navigate on non-flat surfaces and maintain good balance.
2. Position awareness: GPS for location and State-management for knowing whether the system is standing, walking, talking e.t.c.
3. Advanced Gestures: Expression while talking, hand illustrations, smile and other bodily gestures.
4. Grip: Ability to size, understand shape and how to hold things with hand.
Conversation
1. Realtime understanding: Active listening and ability to focus on a specific conversation thread as its happening.
2. Multilingual: Ability to switch languages and interact with the specific gestures.
3. Native Accent: Pitch and Vocabulary detailed pronunciations of words, sentences and even phrases.
Vision
1. Face detection: Identifies and atgs humans through face and facial expressions.
2. Subject focus: Paying attention to a specific item when required.
3. Object detection: Identifies objects and knows their characteristics.
4. Distance analysis: Calculates positions and distance of objects it sees.
Social Interactions
1. Discussion awareness and focus: Pays attention to a specific person to keep the conversation alive.
2. Politeness: Careful and aware of words, phrases, sentences and expressions that are not polite in African cultures.
3. Safe for kids: Smooth interaction and not reactive.
4. Knowledgeable in various fields and always teachable: Learning pipeline to always improve and understand new things from conversations.
5. Retention: Ability to recall, understand old concepts better with new information.
Speaking on the Omeife project, Chuks Ekwueme, CEO of Uniccon Group of Companies says:
“Africa is fast being recognized for its contribution to the global tech ecosystem. Through Omeife and other projects, we’re happy to play a part in helping businesses and people all over Africa to achieve their fullest potential by providing access to the most innovative technologies for efficiency.”
At Gitex, Nigeria’s Minister of Communications & Digital Economy, Professor Isa Pantami, lauded Uniccon Group’s commitment to playing a vital part in advancing technological innovations in Africa.