PRETORIA, SOUTH AFRICA – South African tech startup Lelapa AI is developing artificial intelligence technology for indigenous African languages, enabling children to learn, translate, and converse in their native tongues.
Based in its Pretoria office, the firm is creating custom-made language models to address the serious problem of the digital divide in Africa. Even though over 2,000 languages are spoken in Africa, most digital platforms remain inaccessible to millions of people who do not speak English.
“As far as South Africa is concerned, only one in ten speaks English at home, only one in ten Nigerians speak English at home, and more than 200 million people speak Swahili. However, the current situation is failing to help them get access to the digital world,” said Jade Abbott, CTO at Lelapa AI.
According to Sett Wai, an engineering lead at Lelapa AI, the biggest challenge facing globally trained AI is handling local dialects and accents due to inadequate training data.
Outside Africa, it is intended to launch its multilingual system in other regions that are underrepresented, including Southeast Asia and South America. “Really, what we want to do is not just be serving the continent of Africa but also demonstrate how this can work in other parts of the world where there are thousands of languages not included,” Abbott further mentioned.
Such projects led by African engineers are advancing digital inclusivity and preserving their linguistic and cultural heritage through AI.
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