{"id":1021599,"date":"2024-05-15T11:48:54","date_gmt":"2024-05-15T18:48:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-research-lab&p=1021599"},"modified":"2026-08-28T00:09:24","modified_gmt":"2026-08-28T07:09:24","slug":"microsoft-research-lab-africa-nairobi","status":"publish","type":"msr-research-lab","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/lab\/microsoft-research-lab-africa-nairobi\/","title":{"rendered":"Microsoft Research Lab – Africa, Nairobi"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Microsoft Research Lab – Africa, Nairobi<\/h1>\n\n\n\n

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Building globally equitable AI models and tools<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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At Microsoft Research Africa, Nairobi, we are driven by a mission to understand, build, and deploy innovative cloud and AI technologies for Africa and the world. Our work is grounded in a multidisciplinary approach that combines our diverse skill set and practices with community-based, human-centred methods to design AI to make work more seamless and enable people to grow their skills and knowledge. As AI unlocks new possibilities for billions, we are focused on ensuring that the models and tools we build are globally equitable, inclusive, and meaningful for the communities they serve. In doing so, we both advance AI and ensure it can work for everyone, everywhere.<\/p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/blockquote>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Our Focus Areas<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Advancing Robust Multimodal Foundation Models for Africa<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Building and evaluating culturally-aware AI models for global deployment<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Developing methods for human-centred and LLM-based benchmarking and evaluation<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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Driving community-led development of AI systems across the African ecosystem<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\t\t<\/div>\n\t<\/div>\n\n\t<\/div>\n\n\n\n
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    At Microsoft Research Africa, we partner with universities and research institutions across Africa and globally to co-create AI systems that are grounded in local contexts and shaped through shared knowledge, research, and innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Current Initiatives<\/h3>\n\n\n\n\n\n

    Past Initiatives<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    In 2022, MSR Africa awarded Microsoft PhD fellowships to three students at African universities, marking the programme\u2019s first cohort on the continent: Dorcas Gicuku (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Olalekan Joseph Akintande (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, and Sofia Bourhim (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>. In 2023, a further three fellows were selected from across Africa, including Tezira Wanyana (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Naoya Muramatsu (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, and Hasnae Zerouaoui (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>. Throughout their fellowships, Microsoft worked closely with each researcher on areas of shared interest, supporting collaborative, impactful research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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    Join Dr Collins Munyendo (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a> for our seminar on 24th September where he will present on:<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

    Security and Privacy in the Underserved Majority World: Practices, Challenges, and Opportunities<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

    Recent developments in security and privacy have emphasized the need to consider human factors in security and privacy research and design. However, most of the existing body of work has focused on Western populations, particularly in the US and Europe, despite other research showing that security and privacy perceptions and practices vary across countries and cultures. Consequently, the security and privacy solutions designed and evaluated in the West can quickly fall apart when used or applied to other regions in the \u201cmajority world,\u201d leaving end-users at risk. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

    In this talk, Collins will draw from a series of studies across the majority world to highlight unique security and privacy challenges. The first part will focus on Kenya, examining privacy tensions with mobile loan applications and cybercafes. The second part will go beyond Kenya to show how these challenges recur across other majority world contexts. Finally, he will discuss solutions to these challenges before sharing promising directions for future work.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Speaker Bio:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

    Collins Munyendo\u202fis a Postdoctoral Scholar at the University of California, Berkeley and an Incoming Assistant Professor of Computer Science at the National University of Singapore. His research focuses on human-centered security and privacy. His work has been recognized with several awards, including the John Karat Student Research Award, a Google PhD Fellowship, a Distinguished Paper Award at IEEE S&P, the IAPP SOUPS Privacy Award, and a Top Reviewer Award at CCS. Previously, he earned his PhD in Computer Science at the George Washington University. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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