Capacity Building Program for AI-Driven Climate Change Solutions

Phase 1: Foundation Course (12 weeks)
Course Content
Description: This section introduces learners to Python programming essentials, covering syntax, control structures, functions, and basic data manipulation. It lays the foundation for data science by providing hands-on experience with Python libraries and Git for version control.
Learning Objectives: Master Python basics, understand key data structures, and manage code repositories using Git.
Prerequisite: Basic familiarity with programming concepts.
Week 1: Python Basics
Introduction to Python:
- Syntax, Data Types, and Operators
Control Structures:
- Loops and Conditional Statements
Functions and Data Structures:
- Functions: Definition, Parameters, and Returns
- Data Structures: Lists, Tuples, Dictionaries, and Sets
Week 2: Working with Data and Git
Working with Data:
- Reading/Writing Data: CSV, Excel, and JSON
- Basic Data Manipulation with Pandas
Introduction to Git:
- Git Commands: Clone, Commit, Push, and Pull
- Creating and Managing a GitHub Repository
Python Hands-On Project:
- Mini Project: Data Analysis and Visualization
Description: Learners will explore data collection techniques, including web scraping, and perform exploratory data analysis (EDA) to uncover patterns and insights. This section emphasizes the importance of data preprocessing and feature engineering.
Learning Objectives: Efficiently collect, preprocess, and analyze data to gain actionable insights.
Prerequisite: Python programming skills, and familiarity with data structures.
Week 3: Web Scraping and Data Collection
Web Scraping with Beautiful Soup:
- HTML Structure and Data Extraction
- Parsing and Collecting Static Web Data
Mini Project: Public Data Collection
Advanced Web Scraping with Scrapy and Splash:
- Scrapy Framework for Efficient Web Crawling
- Splash for Dynamic Content Scraping
Mini Project: Dynamic Data Scraping
Description: This section covers data visualization techniques and machine learning fundamentals, including supervised and advanced ML techniques. Learners will build, evaluate, and tune predictive models for climate-related applications.
Learning Objectives: Create informative visualizations and develop predictive models using machine learning.
Prerequisite: Experience with data analysis and Python programming.
Week 6: Data Visualization
Visualization Techniques:
- Using Matplotlib, Seaborn, and Plotly
- Creating Plots: Scatter, Line, Bar Charts, Histograms, and Heatmaps
Hands-on Project: Data Visualization for Climate Data
Week 7: Machine Learning Fundamentals
Supervised Learning:
- Regression and Classification Techniques
Model Evaluation and Tuning:
- Cross-Validation, Precision, Recall, and F1 Score
Hands-on Exercise: Building a Basic Predictive Model
Week 8: Advanced Machine Learning Techniques
Ensemble Methods:
- Random Forest and Gradient Boosting
Deep Learning Basics:
- Introduction to Neural Networks with TensorFlow/Keras
Project: Building an Advanced ML Model
Description: Learners dive into NLP techniques for text data analysis, exploring text preprocessing, sentiment analysis, and advanced NLP models. They will apply these techniques to climate data, generating valuable insights.
Learning Objectives: Analyze and extract insights from textual data using NLP techniques.
Prerequisite: Understanding of Python, data analysis, and basic ML concepts.
Week 9: Introduction to NLP
Text Preprocessing:
- Tokenization, Lemmatization, and Stemming
NLP Techniques:
- Sentiment Analysis and Topic Modeling
Hands-on Project: Basic NLP on Climate Data
Week 10: Advanced NLP Techniques
NLP Models:
- Word Embeddings, Named Entity Recognition, and Text Classification
Project: Advanced NLP Application for Climate Analysis
Description: This section focuses on developing interactive web applications using Streamlit and managing data science projects on GitHub. Learners will learn how to present their work effectively and collaborate on complex projects.
Learning Objectives: Build web applications for data projects and manage them using GitHub.
Prerequisite: Proficiency in Python, basic data visualization, and understanding of Git commands.
Week 11: Streamlit Application Development
Streamlit Basics:
- Building Interactive Web Applications
- Deploying Data Science Projects
Project: Creating a Streamlit App for Climate Data Visualization
Week 12: GitHub and Project Management
GitHub for Collaboration:
- Advanced Git Commands, Branching, and Pull Requests
Project Management Techniques: Issue Tracking, Task Management
Final Project: Managing a Complete Data Science Project with GitHub and Streamlit
Phase 2: Specialized Learning with focus on Climate Change solutions (4 weeks)
Course Content
Week 1: Introduction to Natural Language Processing
- Text Preprocessing: Tokenization, Stemming, and Lemmatization
- Sentiment Analysis and Text Classification
- Hands-on Exercise: Analyzing Climate-Related Text Data
Week 1: Building NLP Models
- Bag of Words and TF-IDF
- Implementing Word Embeddings with Word2Vec
- Mini Project: Topic Modeling on Climate Data
Week 2: Dashboard Development
- Designing Interactive Dashboards with Plotly and Dash
- Visualizing Textual Data and Model Outputs
- Hands-on Exercise: Building a Climate Data Dashboard
Week 2: Final Project
- End-to-End Project: Deploying a Climate Data Dashboard with NLP Insights
Week 3: Introduction to Credit Risk Scoring
- Financial Risk Assessment Fundamentals
- Data Collection and Preprocessing for Credit Scoring
- Mini Project: Data Preparation for Credit Risk Analysis
Week 3: Building Credit Scoring Models
- Logistic Regression for Binary Classification
- Decision Trees and Ensemble Methods for Risk Scoring
- Hands-on Exercise: Developing a Credit Risk Model
Week 4: Integrating Climate Data
- Climate Risk Factors Impacting SMEs
- Merging Financial and Climate Data for Comprehensive Scoring
- Project: Enhancing Credit Risk Models with Climate Data
Week 4: Final Project
- End-to-End Project: Deploying a Climate-Integrated Credit Scoring System