World Kiswahili Language Day: Call To Expand Africa’s Digital Linguistic Presence?

Kiswahili’s digital presence is limited; as such it is considered a low-resource language. 

Infolge of the previous over the past few weeks, Kenya has seen a rapid rate of civic tech development at speeds never experienced before. As the beloved Gen Z took to the streets to express their displeasure with the Kenya Finance Bill 2024, a digital movement was coming together on the sidelines to empower even more Kenyans with the why behind the protests.

In a matter of days, the Kenya Finance Bill 2024 was chunked into bite sizes and explainers hurriedly provided in short video format on TikTok, X and Instagram. These explainer videos then made their way to WhatsApp groups, and while the trend started in English, and was mainly targeted at Gen Z, an urgent need to speak to parents and Gen Z in the rural areas arose. We saw videos being done in over 10 local languages and spread out across all social media platforms. And mostly voluntary. In contrast, an LLM (Large Language Model) for the Finance Bill was released and made available in English and Kiswahili.

Full story ay CIO Africa.

By Kavengi Kitonga & Dr Shikoh.