Develop AI Foundation a Proud LINGUA Africa Open Call Awardee

Across Africa, thousands of languages remain underrepresented in modern AI systems. When languages are not well represented in datasets, models, and tools, communities face barriers to accessing education, healthcare information, public services, financial inclusion, and other opportunities increasingly shaped by digital technologies. 

To help address this gap, Microsoft AI for Good Lab, the Gates Foundation, the Masakhane African Languages Hub, and Google.org launched LINGUA Africa, an open call designed to strengthen the language foundations needed for inclusive AI in Africa.

We are incredibly proud that the Develop AI Foundation is one of the winners of the LINGUA Africa Open Call. We have been working in AI and African languages for years and I am excited to launch "The Newsroom Corpus: Africa’s Community Media as Sustainable Language Data Engines". This is where we will partner with media organizations to develop datasets in Bemba, Nyanja, Shona, Ndebele, Oshiwambo, Dholuo and Maa.

Please see the full list of awardees here.