MCAAI Partnership with Data Science Africa

The partnership between the Maseno Centre for Applied Artificial Intelligence (MCAAI) and Data Science Africa (DSA) harnesses data-driven innovation and machine learning to address localized challenges across the African continent. By combining DSA's pan-African network and capacity-building resources with MCAAI's specialized regional expertise, the collaboration centers on community-driven impact, technological accessibility, and linguistic inclusion. The cornerstone of the alliance is the Leveraging Artificial Intelligence for Kenyan Sign Language (KSL) Production project, which is developing an AI-powered virtual signing avatar capable of translating spoken and written English and local Kenyan languages, including Dholuo, Kikuyu, and Maasai, into Kenyan Sign Language. The initiative draws on a dataset of 20,000 signed KSL videos sourced from educational and public institutions, aiming to eliminate communication barriers and enhance bilingual education and public inclusion for the deaf community. The collaboration also integrates talent through the DSA Visiting Fellowship Program, which prioritizes practical AI applications over pure theory. DSA awarded the fellowship to Cynthia Amol, a PhD student and NLP researcher at MCAAI, who works alongside partners like Sunbird AI to develop automatic speech recognition and language infrastructure suited to African sociotechnical contexts. MCAAI further contributes to low-resource language modeling by executing localized speech data collection for the AfriVoices-KE project, building multi-dialect voice datasets across Nilotic (Dholuo, Maasai, Kalenjin), Cushitic (Somali), and Bantu (Kikuyu) language groups. The two organizations also coordinate on ecosystem upskilling, with MCAAI researchers presenting at Data Science Africa Summer Schools and community showcases, and hosting local events such as IndabaX Kenya and MUCISA campus hackathons.