Jade Abbott

Jade Abbott, CTO and co-founder of Lelapa AI, is on a mission to revolutionize language technology for African languages. In their discussion, she highlights how infrastructure challenges spark innovation in AI development. Abbott emphasizes the need for tailored data collection and innovative strategies, like synthetic data generation, to overcome scarcity issues. They tackle how to optimize models for low-connectivity areas and the collaborative nature of tech advancements, all while underlining the importance of customer experience and ethical considerations.

Jade Abbott and Bonaventure Dossou of Masakhane discuss their mission to strengthen language technology for African languages. They talk about the challenges of data availability, the importance of language and culture, and the need for collaborative research and co-authorship. They also touch on Unicode support, phone translators, and improving translation quality.