About the Case Study
The KenCorpus Project addresses the digital marginalization of African languages by empowering communities to create digital language infrastructure. Led by Dr. Lilian Wanzare, the initiative involves collecting traditional stories, building translation and speech recognition systems with Kiswahili as an anchor, and developing community-based licensing frameworks. This participatory approach challenges traditional AI development by focusing on small, domain-specific models and fostering local expertise, demonstrating a new paradigm for technology that prioritizes human dignity, cultural preservation, and community empowerment.
