Shows
iAfrikan BYTESEmpowering Data Science And ML Communities: Kathleen Siminyu’s JourneyAre you passionate about data science and machine learning? Meet Kathleen Siminyu, a dynamic data scientist and researcher at the Distributed AI Research Institute (DAIR), who excels not only in driving technical innovation but also in fostering inclusivity and community within the field.
In this exclusive interview, Kathleen shares insights into her impactful work, particularly her experiences at Africa’s Talking, her passion for community engagement, and her mission to democratize data science. She discusses her collaborative projects with major partners like Google and other leading organizations, aiming to nurture budding data scientists across Sub-Saharan Africa.
Join us to explore Ka...
2024-06-1224 min
IRL: Online Life is Real LifeLend Me Your VoiceBig tech’s power over language, means power over people. Bridget Todd talks to AI community leaders paving the way for open voice tech in their own languages and dialects.In this episode: AI builders and researchers in the US, Kenya and New Zealand who say the languages computers learn to recognize today will be the ones that survive tomorrow — as long as communities and local startups can defend their data rights from big AI companies.Halcyon Lawrence was an Associate Professor of Technical Communication and Information Design at Towson University in Maryland (via Trinidad and...
2023-11-2122 min
Africa DailyDoes your language have a digital future?We speak hundreds of languages across the African continent.
But only a small number are represented on the internet.
So what future do the languages we speak at home and with our families have, if we cannot use them in a digital world?This is where machine learning comes in, Artificial Intelligence. Because there are translation tools out there, built through Natural Language Processing (NLP), which can allow you to be understood anywhere in the world. But the data needed is complex and takes a long time to create.
So we brought together 3 women who work in...
2023-09-0121 min
WorldBeat with George CollinsCarrying The Torch: Dante Garcia on WorldBeat (1/3)We here on the show explored the globalizing tech sector in our last episode with AI specialist and data scientist Kathleen Siminyu. Now we return home stateside to analyze its effects on the cultural dynamics of the United States. Industry giants like Facebook, Google and Apple once carried with them an air of endless possibilities; a road to a new age led by charismatic white guys in turtlenecks. Skepticism of the web sector seems at a fever pitch in 2022, and as we transition into what the industry dubs “Web 3”, questions of ownership become more important than ever, especially as this...
2022-06-0524 minWorldBeat with George CollinsDecentralized AI: Who Designs The World?: Kathleen Siminyu on WorldBeat (3/3)Computers, artificial intelligence, and machine learning carry reputations as great equalizers free of human error and false judgement, yet these devices require inputs from humans to function and therefore reflect the prejudices of their programmers, Scholars such as Kathleen herself and the American sociologist Ruha Benjamin explain this phenomenon in their writing and organizing. Here Kathleen details the dynamics of a design world dominated by a select group of elites, the promise of decentralized AI in creating a more equitable tech sector, and the importance of people around the world creating and expressing themselves in their languages.
2022-04-0339 minWorldBeat with George CollinsIdentity Changes When The Laptop Closes: Kathleen Siminyu on WorldBeat (2/3)The British science magazine Nature reported in August 2021 that "There’s no original isiZulu word for dinosaur. Germs are called amagciwane, but there are no separate words for viruses or bacteria. A quark is ikhwakhi (pronounced kwa-ki); there is no term for red shift. And researchers and science communicators using the language, which is spoken by more than 14 million people in southern Africa, struggle to agree on words for evolution."African languages have long been shut out of the scientific world, creating questions about who this knowledge and work is for both among speakers of these languages an...
2022-04-0327 minWorldBeat with George Collins"The Power of Language is You Can Wipe Out A People": Kathleen Siminyu on WorldBeat (1/3)Computers have taken over the world as one of my old high school teachers once said. Indeed this here podcast wouldn’t be possible without them. And we become more conscious of their role in our lives as the group of new technologies collectively sitting under the “digital” label pull greater scrutiny of their impact on our everyday interactions.We in North America and Europe talk about these effects of social media flexing on suburban white kids and our coworkers at the water cooler, but we don’t talk about the effects on kids in middle and lower-in...
2022-04-0335 min
Practical AI🌍 AI in Africa - Voice & language toolsIn the third of the “AI in Africa” spotlight episodes, we welcome Kathleen Siminyu, who is building Kiswahili voice tools at Mozilla. We had a great discussion with Kathleen about creating more diverse voice and language datasets, involving local language communities in NLP work, and expanding grassroots ML/AI efforts across Africa.Join the discussionChangelog++ members save 3 minutes on this episode because they made the ads disappear. Join today!Sponsors:Fastly – Our bandwidth partner. Fastly powers fast, secure, and scalable digital experiences. Move beyond your content delivery network to their powerful edge c...
2022-02-0943 min