{"id":1170164,"date":"2026-05-05T19:54:19","date_gmt":"2026-05-06T02:54:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-academic-program&p=1170164"},"modified":"2026-08-07T09:32:10","modified_gmt":"2026-08-07T16:32:10","slug":"lingua-africa-open-call-for-inclusive-ai-language-projects","status":"publish","type":"msr-academic-program","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/academic-program\/lingua-africa-open-call-for-inclusive-ai-language-projects\/","title":{"rendered":"LINGUA Africa Open Call for Inclusive AI Language Projects"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n

Empowering inclusive AI through open language resources<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

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Announcing LINGUA Africa Open Call Awardees<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

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. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLINGUA Africa seeks to encourage bold and innovative thinking by breaking down barriers that have long held back AI progress across the continent\u2014vital access to data, computational power, and technical assistance. With these resources unlocked, I am truly excited to witness the transformative innovations that will emerge from this initiative.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\u2014<\/em> Howard Lakougna, Senior Program Officer, Gates Foundation<\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Partnerships for Progress<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The 26 selected projects span more than 50 African languages, dialects, and sign languages spoken by more than 500 million people across 47 African countries. Together, they reflect remarkable linguistic and geographic diversity\u2014from widely spoken languages such as Kiswahili, Hausa, Amharic, Wolof, and Luganda to underrepresented languages such as Awngi, Tjwao, Doma, Medumba, and Ghomala\u2019, as well as Tanzanian Sign Language and several Hausa dialects. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The awardees bring together universities, nonprofits, international and humanitarian organisations, research institutes, startups, and community-led initiatives. Their projects address health, agriculture, education, justice, public services, journalism, and digital inclusion, with a strong emphasis on creating open speech, text, multimodal, and sign-language datasets; developing automatic speech recognition and text-to-speech technologies; and building practical AI tools for underserved communities. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

From clinical communication and maternal health to agricultural advice, access to justice, local journalism, and cultural preservation, these projects will help increase the availability and quality of African-language resources and ensure that multilingual AI better reflects the knowledge, needs, and realities of African communities.<\/p>\n<\/div>

\"map\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n

The future of AI must be shaped by the people it serves. This opportunity provides much needed resourcing in the form of funding and compute to enable African led AI solutions with a lasting impact on enabling access to relevant tools for day to day needs.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\u2014 Chenai Chair, Director of Masakhane African Languages Hub<\/em><\/cite><\/blockquote><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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List of awardees  <\/h3>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re grateful to the Gates Foundation, Google.org, and Masakhane for their close collaboration and support throughout the evaluation and selection process. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re pleased to announce the selected projects for the LINGUA Africa Open Call: <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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  • AFYA-LINGUA: A Community-Grounded African-Language Layer for Health<\/strong> \u2014 World Health Organization (Kenya) \u2014 Kiswahili, Hausa, Yor\u00f9b\u00e1, Lingala, Amharic, isiZulu, Chichewa, Wolof, Kinyarwanda, and Crioulo <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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    • AgroLingua Africa: Multimodal Vision-Language AI for Agricultural Advisory in 10 African Languages<\/strong> \u2014 Mohamed bin Zayed University of Artificial Intelligence (United Arab Emirates) \u2014 Hausa, Yoruba, Igbo, Twi (Akan), Wolof, Kiswahili, Amharic, Afaan Oromo, Luganda, and Kinyarwanda <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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      • AI-Powered Access to Justice for Women and Girls in Malawi<\/strong> \u2014 Women Lawyers Association of Malawi (Malawi) \u2014 Chichewa <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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        • The Awigna Multimodal Educational Corpus: Building an Open-Source Text and Speech-Alignment Resource for Primary Education<\/strong> \u2014 Injibara University (Ethiopia) \u2014 Awngi (Awigna) <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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          • BAAT: Corpus ouverts de parole et de texte en wolof et pulaar pour une IA accessible aux populations non scolaris\u00e9es<\/strong> \u2014 Universit\u00e9 Num\u00e9rique Cheikh Hamidou Kane (Senegal) \u2014 Wolof and Pulaar <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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            • Building the First Maternal and Child Health Speech Dataset for Five Underrepresented African Languages<\/strong> \u2014 Makerere University (Uganda) \u2014 Luganda, Acholi, Dholuo, Dinka, and Juba Arabic <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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              • Building the Luganda Medical Speech Layer: An Open Corpus and Foundational Models for African Clinical AI<\/strong> \u2014 Crails, Inc. (United States) \u2014 Luganda <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
                  \n
                • Clinical Language Resources for Ghana<\/strong> \u2014 Africa Care Operating System, ACOS Ltd. (Ghana) \u2014 Twi (Akan), Ga, and Ewe <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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                  • DialectBridge: Parameter-Efficient Speech Adapters for Hausa Dialectal Inclusion<\/strong> \u2014 HausaNLP (Nigeria) \u2014 Kananci (Kano), Sakkwatanci (Sokoto), Zazzaganci (Zaria), and Katsinanci (Katsina) Hausa <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
                      \n
                    • Infrastructure vocale du bassin du Congo: Donn\u00e9es ouvertes, ASR et TTS pour le lingala, le kituba et le kikongo<\/strong> \u2014 Bantu Language Initiative (Republic of the Congo) \u2014 Lingala, Kituba, and Kikongo <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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                      • A Kinyarwanda AI Tutor for Community Health Workers<\/strong> \u2014 Digital Umuganda Limited (Rwanda) \u2014 Kinyarwanda <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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                        • Krio Voices: An Open, Use-Case-Driven Speech and Text Corpus for Sierra Leone\u2019s Lingua Franca<\/strong> \u2014 Christex Foundation (Sierra Leone) \u2014 Krio <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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                          • LinguaBridge: Open Speech AI for Underserved West African and MENA Languages, Powered by Humanitarian Community Feedback<\/strong> \u2014 World Food Program USA (United States) \u2014 Wolof, Pulaar, Moor\u00e9, Bambara, Hausa, Twi (Akan), and Hassaniya Arabic <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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                            • M\u00e9moire Vivante du Caf\u00e9: A Culture-Rich Community Speech Corpus for Underrepresented Grassfields Cameroonian Languages<\/strong> \u2014 KmerAI (France) \u2014 Ghomala\u2019, Medumba, and Fe\u2019efe\u2019e (Nufi) <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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                              • MlimiVoice Malawi: Inclusive African Language AI for Smallholder Farmers<\/strong> \u2014 Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (Kenya) \u2014 Chichewa and Tumbuka <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
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                                • MVEKA-AI: A Voice-First Chichewa Artificial Intelligence Platform for Rural Digital Inclusion in Health and Agriculture<\/strong> \u2014 Nyanja Health Research Institute (Malawi) \u2014 Chichewa (Chinyanja) <\/li>\n\n\n\n
                                • The Newsroom Corpus: Africa\u2019s Community Media as Sustainable Language Data Engines<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 Develop AI Foundation NPC (South Africa) \u2014 Bemba, Nyanja, Shona, Ndebele, Oshiwambo, Dholuo, and Maa\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                                • Open Language Resources for Health and Education in Tonga, Tjwao, and Doma<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 Ushahidi Inc. (Kenya) \u2014 Tonga, Tjwao, and Doma\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                                • RADA<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 Algedi Intelligence Labs Limited (Kenya) \u2014 Kiswahili, G\u0129k\u0169y\u0169, Kamba, Dholuo, Maa, Kalenjin, and Somali\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                                • SAM App: AI-Powered Krio Telemedicine for Inclusive Healthcare in Sierra Leone<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 Institute for Development (Sierra Leone) \u2014 Krio\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                                • Sasa<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 Infectious Diseases Institute (Uganda) \u2014 Acholi, Runyakitara, Kikuyu, Luo, Afaan Oromo, Tigrigna, Kiswahili, and Amharic\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                                • SemaShambani: Voice-First Agricultural Advisory and Credit Literacy<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 AntuGrow Limited (Kenya) \u2014 Kiswahili, G\u0129k\u0169y\u0169, Kikamba, Dholuo, Luhya (Bukusu), and Kalenjin\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                                • SomaliLegalLM<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 SIMAD University (Somalia) \u2014 Somali\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                                • TSL-Open: Building an Open, Community-Led Tanzanian Sign Language Resource<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 Arusha Technical College (Tanzania) \u2014 Tanzanian Sign Language\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                                • Voix pour la sant\u00e9: Ressources linguistiques ouvertes et application de communication vaccinale en langues nationales guin\u00e9ennes<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 Efficience Globale S.A.R.L.U. (Guinea) \u2014 Soussou (Susu), Pular, and Maninka\u00a0<\/li>\n\n\n\n
                                • An Open Multilingual Clinical-Language Resource for Community Health in Kirundi, Kinyarwanda, and Somali<\/strong>\u00a0\u2014 TIP Global Health (United States) \u2014 Kirundi, Kinyarwanda, and Somali\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n
                                  \n\n\n\n
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                                  \u201cAI only delivers value when people can actually use it, and language is the bridge. For example, in agriculture, farmers increasingly rely on digital advisory services for crop management and market information. If that guidance isn\u2019t available in a language they understand, it fails to translate into action. This applies across sectors, from healthcare to education. LINGUA Africa is an important step toward grounding innovation in real-world impact by supporting community-led efforts and enabling people to act on critical information in their own languages<\/em><\/em>.\u201d <\/em><\/p>\nInbal Becker-Reshef, Managing Director, AI for Good Lab<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

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                                  <\/p>\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t\"African<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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