With the honored presence of Mr. Moncef Boukthir, Minister of Higher Education and Scientific Research, a high-level meeting was held on Thursday, August 3rd, 2023 in the Ministry premises to discuss digital transformation and its fundamentals for a better information retrieval and exchange for the scientific research community in Tunisia. This meeting was attended by Mr. Mahmoud Zouaoui, Minister’s Chief of Staff, Mr. Mohamed Nizar Yaïche, as well as high officials in the Ministry and Tunisian experts in the field of artificial intelligence from Reedz and Instadeep companies.

The meeting was devoted to considering the implementation of a new information system for a smart management of higher education and scientific research resources, based on artificial intelligence. In this context, Mr. Mohamed Nizar Yaïche and his accompanying delegation expressed their willingness to set up this system and provide a powerful supercomputer free of charge, dedicated to both students, professors and researchers. The whole package will be hosted at Al-Khawarizmi Computing Center (CCK).

The new information system will enable students and researchers, in all specializations of higher education and scientific research, to access smartly to books, scientific articles, doctoral theses, and interact with the artificial intelligence system to enrich and strengthen the Tunisian scientific research outputs. In this context, the Ministry will be provided with the programming code and a supercomputer in order to set up a Tunisian sovereign artificial intelligence system under the supervision of the Ministry in all scientific fields.

The main features and technical characteristics of the system were also reviewed as well as the means of developing them and keeping pace with the technological progress.

Further working sessions will be organized with stakeholders to follow up on the piloting of this high-impact project as it constitutes a valuable asset for the Tunisian higher education and scientific research community.

Author: Centre de Calcul El-Khawarizmi

Le Centre de Calcul El-Khawarizmi (CCK) est le fournisseur de services Internet pour l'ensemble des établissements, agences et administrations relevant du Ministère de l'enseignement Supérieur et de la Recherche Scientifique en Tunisie.