TextAugment Breaks Language Barriers | Johannesburg News

A South African innovation called TextAugment is revolutionizing AI for under-resourced languages like Swahili and Arabic by generating synthetic data to fill digital gaps—already downloaded over 286,000 times. Created by Professor Vukosi Marivate and his team, this open-source tool earned them the inaugural NSTF-SADiLaR Research Software Award and follows Marivate’s receipt of the Order of Mapungubwe in Silver. While TextAugment boosts translation and analysis, Marivate stresses that true AI must grasp cultural context, idioms, and proverbs—not just words. He argues Africa’s AI journey spans over a decade and calls for sustained investment in local language tech, research, and African-led companies to build ethical, inclusive, and sustainable AI ecosystems. Listen in comfort:Get a discount on a Soli Pillow: http://solipillow.com/discount/dnn. Advertise on DNN:[email protected] This is an automated, high-level news summary based on public reporting.Report issues to [email protected]. View sources & latest updates:https://sources.thednn.ai/3e9b597deaf738e4