🚨 FINAL CALL: Only 2 Days Left to Submit Your Abstract! 🚨 The extended deadline for @AfrilangAi 2026 is almost here submit your abstract by October 18th, 2026 Sunbird AI invites researchers, practitioners, organizations, and policy leaders to shape the future of African language technology at the second edition of the AI for African Languages Conference. Whether you're working in Research or Industry, we want to highlight your work in: computational speech & translation low-resource language modeling real-world AI deployments across Africa . ⏰ Deadline: Oct 18, 2026 (AoE) via OpenReview 📍 Conference: Dec 10, 2026 | Kampala, Uganda 🔗 Guidelines & Submission: afrilangai.github.io

Happy Independence Day!!

Sunflower is now the top open-weight model on SAHARA, the public benchmark for 517 African languages and varieties, built by @UBC_NLP. Score: 42.15. Sixth of 48 models overall, and second on text generation, which includes translation. Read how we built it: sunbird.ai/introducing-sunfl… Try Sunflower: sunflower.sunbird.ai See the leaderboard: huggingface.co/spaces/UBC-NL… Models: huggingface.co/Sunbird #AfricanNLP #ForAfricasManyVoices #AIForSocialGood #SunbirdAI

Call for Abstracts: Deadline Extended The deadline for @AfrilangAi 2026 abstract submissions is now 18th October 2026. Sunbird AI invites researchers, practitioners, organisations, and individuals working across research, industry, and policy to submit abstracts for the second edition of the AI for African Languages Conference. Two tracks are open, Research and Industry, covering NLP, speech and translation, low-resource language modeling, and real-world deployments across the continent. Submission deadline: 18th October 2026 (AoE), via OpenReview Conference: 10th December 2026, Kampala,Uganda Guidelines: afrilangai.github.io/

Many classrooms in Uganda have no internet, and most AI tools stop working when the signal does. With the new release of Sunflower v2, A model in the suite runs on an Android phone, fully offline. A child asks a science question out loud in Luganda and hears the answer in Luganda. No data bundle, no signal. Read how it works: medium.com/sunbird-ai/how-su… #Sunflower #ForAfricasManyVoices #AIForSocialGood

Call for Abstracts: AfriLang AI 2026 Sunbird AI invites researchers, engineers, practitioners, organizations, and individuals working across research, industry, and policy to submit abstracts for the second edition of the AI for African Languages Conference. We welcome contributions across two tracks, Research and Industry, covering natural language processing, speech and translation technologies, low-resource language modeling, and deployed solutions addressing real-world challenges across the continent. This conference aims to strengthen a growing field by showcasing and connecting the work that contributes to the AI ecosystem through African language technology. It brings together industry, research, and policy to collaborate, share ideas, and grow the ecosystem together. Submission deadline: 2nd October 2026 (AoE), via OpenReview Conference date: 10th December 2026, Makerere University, Kampala Full submission guidelines:afrilangai.github.io/

Sunflower v2 launched yesterday: five open-source models covering 67 African languages, up from the 31 Ugandan languages in our first release. Today we're publishing the numbers and the methods behind it. Our largest model, Sunflower-Qwen3.8-27B, matches Gemini 3.1 Pro when translating into African languages, and beats it by more than four points on the 31 Ugandan languages specifically. Our speech recognition model has the lowest average error rate on AfriVox-v2 and SimbaBench, two independent African-language benchmarks. For Luganda, Sunflower's its word error rate is 16%, against 31.5% for the next best system. Read it here: sunbird.ai/introducing-sunfl… #Sunflower #ForAfricasManyVoices #AIForSocialGood #SunbirdAI

Today we released Sunflower v2, a suite of five open-source models for 67 African languages, up from the 31 Ugandan languages in our first release. What's in the suite: Translation, speech recognition in 51 languages, text-to-speech in 20, and a model that runs offline on a phone. Every model, and the datasets behind them, is published on Hugging Face, free to use, adapt and build on. "Sunflower v2 is a milestone for African languages. It proves that high-precision text and natural conversational voice are achievable right now, and by releasing it as open infrastructure, we're giving our communities the tools to drive innovation and social impact continent-wide." Dr. Ernest Mwebaze, Executive Director, Sunbird AI Read the full press release:tinyurl.com/ya55drt3

From 31 Ugandan languages to 67 across the continent, now with speech. Sunbird AI's first models set out to test if this worked with far less data than English or French. Outperforming ChatGPT & Gemini 2.5 Pro on translation for 24 languages became the foundation for Sunflower v2. Today we release 5 open-weight models: translation & reasoning, speech recognition, natural speech, and an offline mobile model. Live session happening today at 3:00 PM EAT. Register Here: mak-ac-ug.zoom.us/webinar/re…

Meet the voices behind Episode 6 of the #UrbanDataDialogues Hear from members of the DataCities Uganda Conference organizing committee as they take us inside the conference, sharing what it aims to achieve and why stronger city data systems matter for Uganda’s urban future. Join us today from 3:00–4:00 PM EAT Register here: undp.zoom.us/webinar/registe… #UrbanDataDialogues #UrbanDevelopment

Artificial intelligence cannot deliver on its promise while entire linguistic communities remain excluded. Many of the languages spoken by billions of people are what researchers call low-resource languages: languages underrepresented in the data, tools, and benchmarks used to build and test AI. Today we are joining a shared five-year commitment to help an estimated 3.4 billion people who speak languages currently underrepresented in today's AI models use AI tools in their own language and voice. Sunbird AI is already building open source text and speech technology for 67 low-resource languages across Africa, proof that this work is achievable now. We are joining this commitment to extend that same open infrastructure further, together with others doing the same. Read the full statement here: lnkd.in/dkKrR2EW

From 31 Ugandan languages to 67 across the continent, now with speech. Sunflower v2 is Sunbird AI's open-weight model suite: translation and reasoning, speech recognition, natural-sounding speech, and an offline model built for mobile devices. Read the story: medium.com/sunbird-ai/sunflo… Join the launch: Sept 24, 3:00 PM EAT tinyurl.com/48wtyswf

From 31 Ugandan languages to 67 across Africa. Sunflower is scaling language coverage driving both real-world impact and tech sovereignty. Join us for a look into what this release covers , explore real-world use cases, see the models in action, and discuss how local-language AI is shaping African digital infrastructure. 📅 Date: Thursday, September 24 ⏰ Time: 3:00 PM EAT / 12:00 PM UTC Register here:tinyurl.com/48wtyswf #SunbirdAI #AfricanAI #AfricanLanguageTech #ForAfricasManyVoices

In 2025, Sunbird AI launched our flagship model, Sunflower, covering 31 Ugandan languages and outperforming ChatGPT and Gemini on most of them. Proof that this can be done for African languages. This September 24th Sunflower expands Africa wide, going from 31 to 67 languages, with speech capabilities and offline access. Join us for a live look at how it works. 📅 Thursday, September 24, 2026. 🕰️ 3:00 PM EAT. Register to save your spot:mak-ac-ug.zoom.us/webinar/re… #SunbirdAI #ForAfricasManayVoices #Sunflower #AIForSocialGood

Call for Abstracts: AfriLang AI 2026 Sunbird AI invites researchers, engineers, practitioners, organizations, and individuals working across research, industry, and policy to submit abstracts for the second edition of the AI for African Languages Conference. We welcome contributions across two tracks, Research and Industry, covering natural language processing, speech and translation technologies, low-resource language modeling, and deployed solutions addressing real-world challenges across the continent. This conference aims to strengthen a growing field by showcasing and connecting the work that contributes to the AI ecosystem through African language technology. It brings together industry, research, and policy to collaborate, share ideas, and grow the ecosystem together. Submission deadline: 2nd October 2026 (AoE), via OpenReview Conference date: 10th December 2026, Makerere University, Kampala Full submission guidelines: lnkd.in/d-84krPq

Most AI systems serve a small fraction of the world's languages. Across Africa, that gap has meant limited access to technology leaving millions excluded. This September 24th, Sunflower expands Africa wide, going from 31 to 67 languages, with speech capabilities and offline access. Join us for a live look at how it works. 📅 Thursday, September 24, 2026. 🕰️ 3:00 PM EAT. Register to save your spot: tinyurl.com/48wtyswf

Bias in AI often enters at the point of data collection, long before a model is ever evaluated. A speech recognition system trained mostly on male voices will work reliably for men and poorly for women, not because engineers intended it, but because of who was represented in the training data and who evaluated the system. This is a documented pattern. In January 2026, @GRAINetwork (the Gender and Responsible Artificial Intelligence Network) published a systematic review of bias in automatic speech recognition models for African languages. Gender-inclusive AI isn't an add-on to rigorous AI. It's what rigorous AI looks like in practice. medium.com/sunbird-ai/why-ge… #AIforSocialGood #GenderAndAI #SunbirdAI