Rwanda: AI firm Digital Umuganda works on speech & voice recognition for Kinyarwanda

A renowned Rwandan artificial intelligence firm, Digital Umuganda is currently working on an automatic speech and voice recognition infrastructure for Kinyarwanda, an official language of Rwanda.

Kinyarwanda is a dialect of the Rwanda-Rundi language spoken by at least 12 million people in Rwanda, Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and adjacent parts of southern Uganda. Along with other three languages English, French and Kiswahili, Kinyarwanda is an official language of Rwanda and is spoken widely by almost all of the native population.

According to The News Times, the technology being implemented by the Rwanda artificial intelligence (AI) firm, Digital Umuganda is part of Rwanda Utility and Regulatory Authority’s (RURA) joint initiative dubbed KinyaTech with a non-profit behind Firefox web-browser, Mozilla and the German Development Agency, GIZ. The objective is to develop the pre-conditions for AI implementation and utilization.

“Digital literacy and literacy itself are still low. We are looking at how voice technology can be used to bridge the gap between digital solutions that reside on the internet and people who access that information,” Digital Umuganda’s CEO, Audace Niyonkuru said to the above-cited media outlet.

“If you look at disabled people, let’s say, blind people who cannot access information because they don’t have a way to access that information because it’s written, with speech technology, no one will be left behind,” Niyonkuru cited.