• Holds train-the-trainer seminar for Amirahs, communication officers, others
The Lagos State chapter of Al-Mu’minaat (The Believing Women Organisation) has trained its officers on the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and other emerging digital tools.
This, according to the State Amirah, Hajia Balqees Abdullah, is to bolster da’wah activities and other missions of the faith-based organisation in today’s digital world.
“One of our visions at Al-Mu’minaat is using the best technology in training our members and in fostering what we stand for. If you look at the trend now, AI is the talk of the town. We also want to harness the AI in propagating our vision and mission. We want to train our people on different AI tools they can use to propagate Islam,” she said.
The training, held on Saturday, March 9, 2024, at Hajj Mabrur Seminar Hall, Anthony Lagos, was organised for select officers including Amirahs, Communication officers, Secretaries and their Assistants, across all the Local government areas in Lagos.
Muslim News gathered that the training is an offshoot of Al-muminaat’s Media and Administrative Seminar.
“It is a train-the-trainer programme. These are the people we expect to go and trickle it down in their respective local government areas,” she noted.
Hajia Balqees said her expectation from the training is to see Al-Mu’minaat get an increased presence on social media.
“We should also see more professionalism in what our officers put out there.”
One of the facilitators, Yusuf Jimoh Aweda, a Lead Developer with Edgedock, South Africa, said there are a lot of digital tools that can be used to aid Al-muminaat’s social media engagement, like declarative AI Chatbot, and ChatGPT, among others.
“These digital tools could be used to generate textual content and also to proofread what they want to post on social media ahead or to generate ideas and plan what they need to post on social media.
“They can also help in generating images to accompany their posts on social media. They can also use these tools to have their contents in different language versions. They could write content in English and translate to Pidgin English, Yoruba, Arabic or any other language. So, image generation, and text-to-sound content as well. There are lots of ways that these can aid social media engagement for Al-Mu’minaat.”
Aweda also taught the participants about authentication and upholding moral values on social media platforms while using digital tools and artificial intelligence.
He also allayed fears that AI would replace human activities, noting the digital tool was conceived to make human engagement more efficient.
“AI can’t replace human activities. It’s not possible. What AI does is make human engagement pretty much efficient. AI needs humans to be able to stay. It’s humans that are putting a lot of effort into the creation of AI. If you have to write something out for example, and you need a secretary to do that, AI is your virtual secretary. What it now means is that the human doing the job has to leverage AI to do the job better.”
Also speaking, another facilitator, Hajia Habeebah Ibraheem, said digital tools will assist Al-Mu’minaat in reaching the present generations of GenZ and GenAlpha in its mission.
“These tools will help the organisation reach the present generation of young people who are mostly digital natives. In turn, these young people can also assist in placing the organisation in a good light on digital platforms.
“Certainly, we can’t continue with the traditional ways of doing things. We need to unlearn things that are no longer relevant to the modern age and learn new skills that will help us create value and impact in society,” Habeebah, Founder of Beebahtics Enterprise said.
For her part, the National Professional Officer of Al-Mu’minaat, Alhaja Bushra Adeagbo Jibril, commended the Lagos State chapter for the programme, noting that it would transform the operations of the organisation.
Alhaja Adeagbo-Jibril, who is an immediate former Amirah of Al-Mu’minaat Lagos, said the faith-based organisation takes standard into cognisance, adding that the training on digital tools aligns with its Vision 2030.
“The main focus of our Vision 2030 is having continuous education and transformational leaders. We cannot attain a standard without continuous education and visionary leadership. Our members can through this training become more relevant in society.
“We want to have a robust organisation that will take education as a key role and bring collaboration, social welfare, economic development and good governance to the fore. We want it to start from individuals which will in turn affect the organisation, project it well and then we have a better society.
“Also, we want to take standard into cognisance. We want our programmes to be standard. Of course, our programmes have not changed, but we want them to have an outlook of the modern times. Nothing has changed.
“Our Lagos State chapter has done great in this regard. They are introducing our officers to AI and other digital tools. This will transform the way we do things,” she said.
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