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Data and Machine learning

Algeria is improving in terms of "information society" and Knowledge Economy, both from governmental side and from private sectors. Additionally, the private sector and startups are mining data and making use of it to better leverage information technology in optimizing growth and profit.

The government is moving towards Algeria's national vision for 2030. By establishing the Knowledge Economy, Startups and Micro-enterprises ministry and running multiple digitalization projects in different areas. The government even went to creating an "elite" National School of Artificial Intelligence.

On a global level, data science and machine learning are trending, especially with the wide spread of LLMs and different generative AI models that got more "human" and closer to average non-technical consumers with different ChatBot applications. This trend may get people's interest into adopting this field as a profession, or hire professionals in this domain.

Data-protection laws in Algeria​

The law N°18-07 (governed by ANPDP) (inspired by European Union and French data protection law to some extent) specifies how data is handled.

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However, according to our interviewees the application of this law and the workforce of ANPDP is still in its early stages. Many startups and companies operate without approvals from that authority, while others started working with lawyers and consulting companies to be compliant.

Unfortunately, at the moment of writing this document ANPDP's portal (https://portail.anpdp.dz/) is down, and their website promise (snapshot) to have a form to make complaints about data protection infringements.

Personal note

I could report an incident related to data protection by calling ANPDP's number, when providing enough information about it, they asked to send them an email.

Where Algerian data scientists and ML engineers work?​

According to our survey participants, the majority (70%) of data and machine learning engineers work on-site (or have a hybrid working model) for companies in the same country they live in. 11% work for remotely from Algeria for foreign companies.

We see that some candidates work as full-time freelance data engineers while others do freelance in addition to their full-time or part-time jobs.

According to our data, engineers who work in Algerian companies are mostly based in Algiers, and according to separate research, we also found that most of the companies who hire data and machine learning engineers are based in Algiers. Some examples are listed under "Are there any companies who use data science and ML in Algeria?" section of this page.

However, we see that some Algerians also do freelance work on Upwork for data engineering/analysis and for machine learning gigs. On the other hand, some data scientists and AI/ML engineers work in academia, such as Dr. Taha Zerrouki who leads NLP projects for Arabic language from Algerian university.

tip

DzairAI is building a list of different professionals and researchers working in AI/ML and data which can be found here: https://www.dzair.ai/community.

Is there any "data" in Algeria?​

TLDR; Yes and No.

The adoption of software by by government agencies and companies for managing their systems and to move forward with different digitization and digitalization initiatives has led to the generation of substantial amounts of data.

However, when systems are not utilized effectively or implemented without a focus on data mining and analysis, or without training the personnel using the software, the resulting data often suffers from low quality and quantity.

When it's available, data is usually hosted internally in companies' data centers and servers, or on Algerian hosting services as the Algerian law is clear about data residency.

In some cases, some data gets published publicly for transparency which might create a good base for engineers and researchers.

Government agencies​

With more digitalization and modernization, many government agencies started publishing public data for transparency, and to attract investors and innovators.

However, many other agencies are lacking behind, or still showing outdated data (e.g. National office of statistics still have data from 2019).

Public data​

Public data can be obtained by crawling different sources, or by consuming ready-to-use datasets which are available from different sources.

There is also an initiative to have an Algerian Open Data project (Algeria's first Linked Open Data portal hosted by CERIST).

Applications and websites​

As the collection and the management of personal data is regulated under tha law ANPDP, **websites and applications can collect data **to improve their users' experience and to better understand their client base.

Research and surveys​

Surveys like ours (Algeria Developer Survey) may also provide some data to study and to perform analysis. In academia, research labs can get access to internal datasets from different parties.

Are there any companies who use data science and ML in Algeria?​

Yes. DzairAI community did a brilliant job collecting some of them in this page: https://www.dzair.ai/institutions.

We can identify different organisms who use machine learning and data science:

Academia and R&D​

Production companies​

TelCo​

Consulting companies​

Banks and insurance companies​

Startups​

Foreign companies based in Algeria​

AI-focused agencies​

Is there an Algerian generative AI platform?​

Yes, Nojoom.ai claim to be the first 100% Algerian generative AI platform.

The platform is called Nojoom (Stars) aim to produce several responsible and Arabic AI tools, starting with "Thuraya" an AI-powered Arabic search engine, and Suhail a tool to analyze documents, summarize and extract information.

Inspired by Arabic stars name (Suhail and Thuraya), Nojoom aim to create more AI-powered tools with the pride of being an Algerian product, build by Algerians.

Last updated on by Abdeldjalil Fortas