Olayinka Iyinolakan

  • Center for the Digitization of Indigenous African Languages

  • 2023 Global Fellow

Olayinka Iyinolakan's professional headshot
  • Center for the Digitization of Indigenous African Languages

  • 2023 Global Fellow

bold idea

Close the digital inequality gap for suburban and rural Africans by using AI technology to preserve African languages and localize digital access to education, healthcare, and financial services.

organization overview

CDIAL addresses digital inequities in Africa by creating and distributing speech-activated localized software and hardware. CDIAL empowers Africans who do not fluently communicate in English, French, Arabic or Portuguese — the most spoken colonial languages across Africa — by enabling communication and the translation of 180 languages. CDIAL facilitates the localization of digital platforms by utilizing collective and artificial intelligence, empowering one billion Africans to participate fully in the global technology ecosystem. CDIAL’s long-term goal is to create a more equitable technological landscape in Africa that allows everyone to benefit from digital advancements.

Personal Bio

Olayinka Iyinolakan is the founder of CDIAL, a social impact startup that addresses digital inequities in Africa by creating and distributing speech-activated localized technology that uses artificial and collective intelligence. He holds two master’s degrees in media and communications and business administration and a Ph.D. in-view in media and communications. Prior to founding CDIAL, he worked as head of strategic communications, advocacy, and technology at the Nigerian Economic Summit Group and digital marketing manager at Ecobank. Olayinka is a recipient of several awards. He was the valedictorian for graduate studies at the Pan Atlantic University in Nigeria, and he was nominated for The Inventor of the Year by the Art of Technology 4.0 and Future Africa Awards in Professional Services. From an academic perspective, Olayinka is a visiting research scholar and specialist at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where he has been researching natural language processing for low-resourced languages, gamified learning, and sociocultural integration. Olayinka’s vision is to create a more equitable technological landscape in Africa that empowers communication and creativity regardless of language barriers.

  • Organization/Fellow Location ?

    Our most recent information as to where the Fellow primarily resides.

    Lagos, Nigeria

  • Impact Location ?

    Countries or continents that were the primary focus of this Fellow’s work at the time of their Fellowship.

  • Organization Structure ?

    An organization can be structured as a nonprofit, for-profit, or hybrid (a structure that incorporates both nonprofit and for-profit elements).

    Hybrid

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