# Repatriating Talent: Lelapa brings AI talent back to Africa **URL:** \ **Category:** AI Discussions\ **Tags:** the-batch, ai-discussions\ **Created:** [April 13, 2023, 9:32pm UTC](https://community.deeplearning.ai/t/repatriating-talent-lelapa-brings-ai-talent-back-to-africa/308595 "2023-04-13T21:32:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 2\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![natalia.farfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/65b543/32.png) [@natalia.farfan](https://community.deeplearning.ai/u/natalia.farfan)\ **Post date:** [April 13, 2023, 9:32pm UTC](https://community.deeplearning.ai/t/repatriating-talent-lelapa-brings-ai-talent-back-to-africa/308595/1 "2023-04-13T21:32:02Z")
![Sin título22](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/dlai/original/3X/6/f/6fe56a21ad0c6df2abcb6a9dcb2c47fd7c3ebcbb.png) A South African startup aims to lure talented engineers who left the continent to work abroad. **What’s new:** Johannesburg research lab [Lelapa.ai](https://lelapa.ai/?utm_campaign=The%20Batch&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--_8BK5s6jHZazd9y5mhc_im1DbOIi8Qx9TzH-On1M5PCKhmUkE9U7-vz5E95Xtk-wDU5Ss) bills itself as a haven for African AI engineers who want to work on challenges that aren’t on Silicon Valley’s agenda, _Wired_ [reported](https://www.wired.com/story/one-startups-plan-to-help-africa-lure-back-its-ai-talent/?utm_campaign=The%20Batch&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--_8BK5s6jHZazd9y5mhc_im1DbOIi8Qx9TzH-On1M5PCKhmUkE9U7-vz5E95Xtk-wDU5Ss). The company purports to focus on languages such as isiZulu that big-tech natural language models don’t accommodate. **How it works:** Lelapa develops AI models for other businesses and nonprofits. The company has raised $2.5 million from institutions including Mozilla Ventures, Africa-centric investor Atlantica Ventures, and private investors including Google AI chief Jeff Dean. Current projects include: - [Vulavula](https://lelapa.ai/vulavula/?utm_campaign=The%20Batch&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--_8BK5s6jHZazd9y5mhc_im1DbOIi8Qx9TzH-On1M5PCKhmUkE9U7-vz5E95Xtk-wDU5Ss), a service that provides multilingual intent detection, translation, and transcription - An unnamed data-mining service for [Open Restitution Africa](https://openrestitution.africa/?utm_campaign=The%20Batch&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--_8BK5s6jHZazd9y5mhc_im1DbOIi8Qx9TzH-On1M5PCKhmUkE9U7-vz5E95Xtk-wDU5Ss), a nonprofit that retrieves African artifacts held in overseas museums - A machine translation service that helps mothers connect with healthcare professionals **Behind the news:** Lelapa’s founders include some organizers of [Deep Learning Indaba](https://deeplearningindaba.com/2022/?utm_campaign=The%20Batch&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--_8BK5s6jHZazd9y5mhc_im1DbOIi8Qx9TzH-On1M5PCKhmUkE9U7-vz5E95Xtk-wDU5Ss), a machine learning conference most recently held in Tunisia, and [Masakhane](https://www.masakhane.io/?utm_campaign=The%20Batch&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--_8BK5s6jHZazd9y5mhc_im1DbOIi8Qx9TzH-On1M5PCKhmUkE9U7-vz5E95Xtk-wDU5Ss), a nonprofit that promotes open-source models and datasets for African languages. Co-founder [Jade Abbott](https://www.deeplearning.ai/blog/working-ai-building-bespoke-models-with-jade-abbott/?ref=dl-staging-website.ghost.io) was profiled in DeepLearning.AI’s Working AI blog series. **Why it matters:** Over 74 percent of foreign-born students who receive a PhD in AI from a school in the United States remain in the U.S. after graduating, last year’s State of AI report [found](https://aiindex.stanford.edu/report/?utm_campaign=The%20Batch&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--_8BK5s6jHZazd9y5mhc_im1DbOIi8Qx9TzH-On1M5PCKhmUkE9U7-vz5E95Xtk-wDU5Ss#individual-chapters). Lelapa’s founders hope their project will help Africa reclaim some of this talent, nurture native AI startups, and address systemic inequities in AI development. **We’re thinking:** Sub-Saharan Africa [accounts](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL?locations=ZG-1W&utm_campaign=The%20Batch&utm_source=hs_email&utm_medium=email&_hsenc=p2ANqtz--_8BK5s6jHZazd9y5mhc_im1DbOIi8Qx9TzH-On1M5PCKhmUkE9U7-vz5E95Xtk-wDU5Ss) for 15 percent of the world’s population but fewer than 1 percent of AI patents and conference publications, according to the State of AI report. Organizations like Lelapa can help the region realize its potential. ---
**Author:** ![reinoudbosch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/22d042/32.png) [@reinoudbosch](https://community.deeplearning.ai/u/reinoudbosch)\ **Post date:** [May 20, 2023, 12:42am UTC](https://community.deeplearning.ai/t/repatriating-talent-lelapa-brings-ai-talent-back-to-africa/308595/2 "2023-05-20T00:42:07Z")
Closed on May 20, 2023, 12:42am UTC