CAS held its second Africa @ Noon lecture of the new academic year on Wednesday, October 29.  Abraham Toluwase Owodunni, is a foreign student from Nigeria undergoing his PhD matriculation in the Department of Engineering and Computer Science here at Ohio State University.  He presented a lecture based on his research entitled “Going Beyond Text with AI for African Languages”.  According to Abraham, AI has yet to comprehend language in Africa because communication in Africa is “much richer” than text.  Explaining further, he expanded that “from the rhythm of speech to the meaning carried in our names, image and sounds, much of African expression lives beyond the written word.”  In his presentation, Abraham explored how AI can be applied beyond text to truly mirror the African experience through accents, voices, stories, and the continent’s abundant cultural identity.  Abraham’s presentation highlighted efforts to create technologies that can understand Africa’s various cultural identities by engaging the next generation of language and multimodal technologies. His presentation challenges us to imagine an Africa-centered future for AI in which the technology not only speaks African languages, but sees, listens, and comprehends Africans.

Abraham’s lecture was very well attended, totaling 24 attendees.  Some viewers joined by Zoom from Florida and Columbia in South America.  Lunch was provided for all in attendance.