Tech giant Google has officially launched WAXAL, a massive open-source project designed to teach Artificial Intelligence (AI) how to speak and understand African languages—including those widely spoken on the Plateau.
Unveiled this week by Google Research Africa, the initiative addresses a major gap in the global tech space: while AI assistants like Siri and Alexa work perfectly in English or French, they often struggle with African languages due to a lack of data.
WAXAL (which means “Speak” in the Wolof language) aims to fix this by providing free access to high-quality voice data for 21 African languages.
For developers, students, and creatives in Jos and across Plateau State, this is a massive opportunity. The dataset specifically includes languages central to our daily interactions, including:
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Hausa
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Fulani (Fula)
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Yoruba
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Igbo
This means local techies can now build apps, translation tools, and educational software that actually “speak” and “listen” to our people in their native tongues, without relying on foreign technology that doesn’t understand our accents or context.
Unlike previous tech drops that were developed solely in Silicon Valley, WAXAL was built in collaboration with African institutions, including the University of Ghana and Makerere University.
Aisha Walcott-Bryant, Head of Google Research Africa, described the project as a tool for empowerment:
“The ultimate impact of WAXAL is the empowerment of people in Africa. This dataset provides the critical foundation for students, researchers, and entrepreneurs to build technology on their own terms, in their own languages.”
The project is not just a small sample; it is a robust library for developers:
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1,250 hours of transcribed natural speech (for teaching computers to listen).
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20 hours of studio-quality recordings (for teaching computers to speak).
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Open Access: The data is free for anyone to use to build new solutions.
Why It Matters Now To Plateau People
With the Plateau State Government recently launching initiatives to boost the creative economy, access to tools like WAXAL could position the state as a hub for Language Technology. Imagine an app that helps tourists navigate Jos in Hausa, or an agricultural tool that reads instructions aloud to farmers in Fulani.
The door is now open for Plateau’s innovators to walk through.
