On October 29, 2024, Lanfrica hosted The Lanfrica Data Unconference, a fully‑virtual gathering on Zoom designed to re‑imagine who gets to shape language technology for African and other under‑represented languages.
Motivation
“You don’t have to be a computer scientist to influence the technology that affects your language.”
In today’s digital world, indigenous and minority languages are at risk of fading away, often overshadowed by dominant languages in technology and communication. At the heart of this challenge lies a crucial question: who builds the technologies that will shape the future of our languages? Too often, decisions about language technologies are made without the input of the very people who speak, study, and live through these languages.
At Lanfrica, we believe that everyone, from language experts to language users, has the innate ability to be a “builder”. You don’t have to be a computer scientist or a software engineer to influence the technology that affects your language. Our first goal is to empower language users—students, teachers, elders, storytellers, researchers, and community members—to discover their role in shaping our language technologies. We want to ignite the “builder” within each individual.
Why an “un‑conference”?
Traditional conferences often put a handful of experts on stage; an unconference flips that script. The goal was to create an informal, participatory space where anyone—teachers, elders, students, linguists, technologists, entrepreneurs—could bring questions and ideas, exchange lived experience, and co‑design next steps for their languages.
Conversations that mattered
Facilitated by Samuel Olanrewaju, the unconference explored important themes:
- Beyond consumption: How can communities move from simply using off‑the‑shelf language tools to actively shaping them?
- The data business: What opportunities exist to turn linguistic knowledge and data stewardship into sustainable economic value?
- Future ownership: What practical steps ensure that tomorrow’s technologies are built with and for the people who speak the languages?
The unconference format encouraged breakout discussions, rapid idea‑sharing, and spontaneous collaboration proposals rather than formal slide decks.
Key takeaways
- Community expertise is currency. Fluency, cultural insight, and local networks are invaluable assets when designing or auditing language datasets.
- Economic futures begin with data empowerment. Participants stressed the need for training on data licensing, revenue models, and fair compensation so communities capture value from their own linguistic assets.
- Collaboration beats competition. The most exciting ideas—such as joint data cooperatives or shared advocacy toolkits—emerged where technologists, linguists, and everyday speakers worked side by side.
Keep building with us
Whether you are cataloguing proverbs, fine‑tuning speech models, or simply passionate about seeing your language thrive online, Lanfrica invites you to keep the unconference spirit alive: share knowledge, question defaults, and build technology that reflects your linguistic reality.
