During an interview with CoinTelegraph, Lucky Uwakwe, the chairman of Nigeria’s Blockchain Industry Coordinating Committee (BICCoN), advocated for the implementation and use of artificial intelligence (AI) to preserve African languages.
Lucky stated that the world is advancing, and blockchain and AI must be highly implemented in Africa. He highlighted that African languages are gradually going extinct, and there is an imminent call for action to protect these languages.
Lucky Uwakwe further stressed that various socio-economic factors are also a big factor in this crisis. He pointed out an example of insecurity causing people to displace their homes and communities in Plateau State, Nigeria. The insecurity has caused people to live apart and the use of their indigenous languages has declined significantly.
Application of AI and Blockchain To Save Languages
Nigeria is a multilingual nation with many states with different cultures, traditions, and languages estimated to be approximately five hundred. However, Google only offers translation for 3-4 languages (Igbo, Yoruba, Hausa, and Pidgin) out of over 500 languages.
“Although, the four above are regarded as the major languages, would we allow the rest to die into extinction? Most software engineers are not well equipped or knowledgeable to build software or applications that would support these languages.” He stated.
Lucky stressed that the ultimate goal is to keep our language from extinction. The use of advancements like AI and blockchain would catalyze the achievement of this dream.
The Big Giants
He also highlighted that global tech giants are not providing enough language support. Africans possess many languages, and applications and software can be modelled to solve and receive data, and documents in their native languages.
People might also be pushed to use and test this application if incentives (tokens) are being earned while using the application. With the adoption and use of this software, data received can be used to train and improve AIs.
Recently, Lucky Uwakwe was appointed as the community ambassador for LingoAI in Nigeria and Africa. Before his appointment, Lucky had always used his position as the CEO of Sabi Group to promote blockchain and Web3 adoption across Nigeria.
Conclusion
With the recent advocacy for blockchain and AI adoption by Government Officers and high-ranking people in society, Nigeria might experience a significant improvement. On the 30th of June, Mr. Olanipekun Olukoyede, the chairman of Nigeria’s Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, threw his weight behind the adoption of AI and Blockchain tools as a tool to eliminate Illicit financial flows (IFFs) in Africa.
The Federal Ministry of Communications, Innovation, and Digital Economy in Nigeria also launched a multilingual large language model (LLM) on the 19th of April. The ministry stated it has begun efforts to become one of Africa’s frontiers in AI adoption.
