NaijaVoices Language Heritage Micro-Grant

NaijaVoices Language Heritage Micro-Grant is sponsored by NaijaVoices. This national call for proposals supports community-driven projects that build, enrich, and conserve Nigeria's linguistic diversity.

The 2025 NaijaVoices Language Heritage Micro-Grants The 2025 NaijaVoices Language Heritage Micro-Grants Supporting community-driven projects that build, enrich, and conserve Nigeria's linguistic diversity. Rooted in our principle of data farming, we empower communities to cultivate, own, and benefit from their language resources.

Nigeria boasts more than 500 languages, yet most of them are undocumented, un-recognized, and largely endangered. In technologies, only the three main languages – Igbo, Hausa, Yoruba – receive the most attention and efforts, while the other languages are largely untouched. The NaijaVoices Community is dedicated to changing that.

Empowering communities, individuals to preserve, and own their linguistic heritage. Prioritizing Nigeria's languages that have received little to no attention. Ensuring that every Nigerian language, no matter how small, finds its place in the digital future.

Our unique ethos that ensures sustainable, community-driven, value-creating data collection. On May 19th, 2025, we launched the 2025 NaijaVoices Language Heritage Micro-Grants call for proposal. Focused on Nigeria's 500+ languages, we're seeking innovative projects that conserve and revitalize Nigeria's rich linguistic diversity.

Indigenous folktales narrated in indigenous languages Digitization of existing language projects in Nigerian universities Audio datasets of proverbs, idiomatic expressions, and riddles Multilingual proverb collections showcasing variation across languages Speech + sign language datasets capturing rich multimodal communication Groups of individuals from any (or no) affiliation Individuals applying solely Community-based organizations, institutions, research labs NGOs, schools, or informal language groups Must have participated in NaijaVoices project Learn More and Submit Your Proposal Choose the funding level that best fits your project scope and goals 3 projects will be awarded Comprehensive language documentation Community engagement programs Digital preservation tools 3 projects will be awarded Smaller datasets (as small as 1 hour) Ideal for very remote or endangered languages Single individuals welcome All awardees will receive mentoring, expert advice, and workshops (e.g., annotation templates, recording guidelines).

Important dates and milestones for the 2025 grant cycle Application portal opens for project submissions All applications must be submitted by this date Expert committee reviews all submitted proposals Successful grant recipients will be announced during the award ceremony Grant recipients work on their projects Final reports & dataset delivery Project completion and final deliverables submission Joy Bechi serves as the grant secretary for the 2025 NaijaVoices Language Heritage Micro-Grants program.

Our expert committee brings together diverse perspectives in language, cultural heritage, and community development. Meet our distinguished reviewer committee members. I hold a degree in Biochemistry, with a Master's and Ph.

D. in Neuroscience. I currently work as a Project Specialist for the LatamGPT project at CENIA, where I lead the Data and Strategic Partnerships team.

Additionally, I am part of OpenAI's global Red Team, where I have contributed to the evaluation of several models, including GPT-4o, Sora, o1, and o3-mini. Stonybrook University, Linguistics Island I am a PhD student researcher. I do and I am interested in community-driven computational documentation, description, learning and modelling of understudied and undocumented African languages phonetics and phonology.

I aim to model African languages through population of linguistic insights in computational systems and machines. I'm Oreoluwa Babatunde, an AI researcher and cofounder of LyngualLabs. I work on building speech and text datasets for African languages and developing multilingual speech models that support underrepresented communities in natural language processing and voice technology.

Dr. Oduntan, Odunayo Esther Federal Polytechnic Ilaro, AIMS-AMMI (Kigali) Data Science Network, Women in AI, Masakhane, Data Science Africa, WiMLDS --> Dr. Esther Oduntan is a Chief Lecturer in Computer Science at The Federal Polytechnic, Ilaro. She's interested in machine intelligence (ML, NLP, CV) applied to education, health, and agriculture, and enjoys knowledge sharing through groups like Black in AI and Data Science Network.

She actively organizes workshops and participates in tech initiatives. Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine Dr. Lukman is a postdoctoral researcher at The Johns Hopkins University exploring brain network connectivity in spinal cord injury and gut–brain interactions. He applies AI and computational models to neuroimaging data to improve diagnosis, track therapeutic response, and identify biomarkers.

His interests include medical imaging, graph learning, and AI-driven healthcare systems. National Research Council Canada Rebecca Knowles is a Research Officer at the National Research Council of Canada.

Her research focuses on machine translation and computer-aided translation, with recent work in machine translation evaluation, low-resource machine translation, and the Indigenous Languages Technology project at NRC (which focuses on Indigenous languages in Canada). Zabbot LLC , Beacon VIP Concierge Limited (BVCL) , WimBiz , AiFOD.

org , ASEM Bola Agbonile is Founder of Zabbot LLC, a cultural language platform blending AI with heritage preservation. Her mission is to make the learning of heritage languages (starting with Yorùbá) joyful, accessible & culture-infused. As a software engineer & product lead she champions community-led design, & recently volunteered on the NaijaVoices review committee.

The African Research Collective (TARESCo) I'm a linguist and NLP Research Fellow at The African Research Collective, where I contribute to building and improving tools and resources for Nigerian languages. My work is driven by an interest in linguistically informed models, inclusive AI, and bridging technology with the realities of African language communities.

South African Centre for Digital Language Resources (SADiLaR) I am a project manager at South African Centre for Digital Language Resource (SADiLaR), working currently on a digital language preservation initiative, the SWiP project.

I have led a national language resource audit across 26 public universities in South Africa and contribute to community development by promoting official languages and facilitating digital skills training in underrepresented communities. University of Malawi, Zindi Africa Ramsey is an AI researcher passionate about multimodal and privacy-preserving ML.

He is a staff associate at the University of Malawi, where he teaches and also supports the implementation of national digital transformation initiatives using open-source tech in health and agriculture, and serves as Zindi Africa's country ambassador. Stockholm University , Swedish Institute , Sustainable AI Solutions AB I am a Master's student in AI and Language with a focus on multilingual NLP.

I have co-developed a humanitarian AI curriculum, supported language data projects for underrepresented communities, and helped more women access digital skills through training and outreach. My work centres on using technology to reflect local realities and support community needs. LyngualLabs, Zindi Africa Victor is a co-founder at LyngualLabs and an expert in Machine Learning with a focus on multilingual NLP.

He is also an active member of Zindi Africa where he has attained a rank of #1 and has contributed several open-source solutions and tutorials in the African AI ecosystem. Localizehau , Linguistics Island I am a Hausa linguist and AI data annotator passionate about inclusive technology. I work on multilingual NLP, ASR training, and ethical AI for underrepresented languages.

I also mentor youth on tech careers in Northern Nigeria, supporting digital literacy and community-led innovation through localized language solutions. Jimma University, Ethiopia I am an assistant professor at Jimma University, specializing in NLP. Passionate about advancing African languages through emerging technologies like AI.

I believe that natural language is the backbone of AI and envision a future where African languages are fully supported in the digital world. The 2025 NaijaVoices Language Heritage Micro-Grants Award Ceremony was a celebration of innovation, community, and the preservation of Nigeria's rich linguistic heritage. see how we're making a difference together.

Celebrating the innovative projects and dedicated individuals who are preserving Nigeria's linguistic heritage. These six awardees represent the future of community-driven language preservation.

You can also read the official announcement Ehugbo TTS: Biblical Text to Speech Dataset in Ehugbo Language I'm from Afikpo and there is little to no resource on my language Ehugbo so I decided to build for my language Ehugbo Language, Afikpo Town.

This is because it's my village Collect at least 1 hour audio biblical dataset Future-proofing Gbagyi: A Community-centered Approach To Language Data Collection Since I started working with Naijavoices I have come to discover that a culture can be preserved by future-proofing its language: This is because a language has its culture embedded within. This has been a passion for me. The Gbagyi language even though it presently has over 1.

29 million speakers, is endangered and vulnerable to extinction because of the dominance of more widely spoken language, lack of institutional support, lack of inclusion in formal education and lack of representation in technological advancement.

This project will farm a six hour speech-text data of the Gbagyi language Nupe Language Speech Dataset This project is driven by a deep concern for the preservation and revitalization of the Nupe language, which despite having millions of speakers, remains underrepresented in digital and technological spaces. As a native speaker and researcher, I am passionate about ensuring that Nupe is not left behind in the digital future.

The project focuses on the Nupe language, and it's dialects Dibo and Kakanda spoken by the Nupe people in Niger, Kwara, and Kogi States in Nigeria. Although it has a significant speaker base, Nupe is endangered due to the dominance of other regional languages and a lack of documentation. The community has rich oral traditions, proverbs, and stories that are at risk of disappearing.

I chose this language because of my personal ties to the community and my commitment to preserving its linguistic heritage through inclusive, community-led digital documentation. The project will collect, transcribe, and publish 3 hours high-quality speech dataset in the Nupe language using mobile-based tools and contributions from 10 native speakers.

Documenting Ekpeye Folktales-Preserving Cultural Heritage Documenting the folktales of Ekpeye is not just an academic pursuit for me - it is a personal mission. Growing up listening to folktale stories from my grandmother and elders, I realised how they shape identity, preserve history and transmit wisdom. However, with rapid urbanisation and the dominance of a global media, oral traditions are declining.

Many custodians of folktales in Ekpeye have passed away leaving only a few that are still carrying on, and without systematic documentation their knowledge could disappear. I am working on the Ekpeye language. The people of Ekpeye and their language have the same name.

They are found in Ahoada-East and some parts of Ahoada-West Local Government Areas of Rivers State, Nigeria. The Ekpeye language is classified as a sister language of Igbo under the Igboid sub-family of Niger-Congo family tree. I chose to work on Ekpeye because it is a low-resourced language that is yet to receive robust documentation.

Without records a language may be lost. My documenting the folktales of Ekpeye will create a repository of cultural performance that reflects the unique traditions, beliefs, knowledge systems, and customs of the Ekpeye people. A tyap A fwan: Preserving Tyap Through Community-Driven Speech Data I'm motivated to preserve the Tyap language, a core part of Atyap identity which is digitally under documented and under extinctional threat.

This project is of essence to me, because it creates a Tyap speech dataset to document its heritage and enable future language technologies, aligning with NaijaVoices' mission to promote Nigeria's linguistic diversity. We're documenting Tyap, spoken by the Atyap people in southern Kaduna, Nigeria. Tyap is a language with unique tonal features, but it's at risk due to insecurity and the dominance of larger languages like Hausa.

The Atyap community is vibrant, with a rich cultural heritage tied to their language. I chose Tyap because of my personal connection to the community and a commitment to preserve our linguistic identity, ensuring it thrives for future generations. My project will create a 1-hour Tyap speech dataset to preserve and promote the endangered Tyap language of the Atyap community in southern Kaduna, Nigeria.

Everyday Interaction in Ibono and Obolo languages I feel a sense of satisfaction when I do things that helps preserve and advance a minority language. I have special interest in indigenous languages, especially languages of the areas I grew up in. This project will be working on Ibono language spoken in Akwa Ibom State, and on Obolo language spoken in Rivers State and Akwa Ibom State.

Ibono is a marginalized community, and the language is threatened by the bigger languages surrounding it. There is practically no documentation work done on the language hence there is no alphabet, nor orthography. This project will help record audio in this language and transcribe it.

A keyboard for Ibono language will be built to make the transcription possible. Obolo language, though a little ahead of Ibono language, is still an endangered language. This project will help make such audio available, especially for educational purposes.

Record 600 minutes of natural everyday interaction in Ibono and Obolo languages and transcribe them using an existing keyboard for Obolo, and a keyboard that will be built during this project for Ibono. Have questions about the NaijaVoices Language Heritage Micro-Grants? We're here to help you with any inquiries about the application process, eligibility requirements, or general information about the program.

For all inquiries, partnership, media, or any other related to the NaijaVoices Language Heritage Micro-Grants program, please contact us via email: