{"id":1148327,"date":"2025-09-05T08:58:04","date_gmt":"2025-09-05T15:58:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/?post_type=msr-event&#038;p=1148327"},"modified":"2025-09-05T11:50:34","modified_gmt":"2025-09-05T18:50:34","slug":"deep-learning-indaba-2025","status":"publish","type":"msr-event","link":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/event\/deep-learning-indaba-2025\/","title":{"rendered":"Deep Learning Indaba\u202f2025"},"content":{"rendered":"\n\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft is honored to sponsor <a class=\"msr-external-link glyph-append glyph-append-open-in-new-tab glyph-append-xsmall\" href=\"https:\/\/deeplearningindaba.com\/2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><strong>Deep Learning Indaba\u202f2025<\/strong><span class=\"sr-only\"> (opens in new tab)<\/span><\/a>, Africa\u2019s premier AI and machine learning gathering. The event will take place in Kigali, Rwanda from 17\u201322\u202fAugust\u202f2025. This year\u2019s theme, <em>Urunana\u202f\u2013 Hand in Hand for AI in Africa<\/em> embodies solidarity and cooperation. Urunana highlights the need to bridge gaps between academia and industry, established researchers and emerging talent, traditional knowledge systems and modern AI applications. As a longtime partner of the Indaba, Microsoft shares this vision of inclusive, community driven AI. The Indaba brings together research students, academics, research organizations, startups and other groups from across the continent. The six-day program features keynote talks, practical tutorials, hackathons, research showcases, workshops, and awards.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Microsoft researchers will participate in talks, panels and workshops aligned with these Indaba themes:&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Trustworthy and Ethical AI<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Building culturally and ethically relevant frameworks that ensure AI systems are aligned with African values and societal needs.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>AI for Business and Finance<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Exploring AI solutions tailored to regional financial ecosystems and inclusive economic growth.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Robotics and Automation<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Advancing robotics and machine learning for applications in healthcare, agriculture, energy, and manufacturing.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Climate-Resilient AI<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Applying AI to address Africa\u2019s pressing climate challenges through adaptation and sustainability.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Data in African AI<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Addressing data scarcity, governance, sovereignty, and inclusion in the African AI ecosystem.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Health and Life Sciences<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Leveraging AI and data science to transform healthcare delivery, genomics, and public health across the continent.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Human\u2013AI Interaction<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Designing AI systems that meet people where they are and integrate seamlessly into existing workflows.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Quantum Machine Learning<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Exploring how quantum computing can advance AI applications in health, climate, and finance.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Responsible AI Leadership<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Elevating African AI practices and research into the global conversation on responsible AI.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>NeuroAI and Brain-Inspired Models<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Bridging neuroscience and AI to advance brain-inspired models, interfaces, and understanding.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Natural Language Processing for Africa<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Pushing forward NLP research to support the diversity of African languages and local contexts.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Advanced Compute<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Exploring cutting-edge computing technologies\u2014including neuromorphic, in-memory, and quantum\u2014for Africa\u2019s AI future.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading h3\" id=\"our-research-at-indaba-2025\">Our research at Indaba 2025<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Equitable AI research at Microsoft Research<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 At Indaba 2025, Microsoft Research is proud to showcase our work on Equitable AI, led by teams across Africa, India, and Redmond. Our research focuses on building human-centered, linguistically and culturally inclusive AI systems that serve underrepresented communities.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Agriculture copilots for the Global South<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 In collaboration with Digital Green, Project Gecko develops multilingual, multimodal AI copilots to support smallholder farmers in Kenya and India. These copilots enable farmers to interact via voice, text, and video in local languages like Kikuyu and Swahili, improving access to climate-smart agricultural knowledge.&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Speech technology for low-resource languages<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 We benchmarked and fine-tuned state-of-the-art ASR models\u2014including Phi-4 and Whisper\u2014on domain-specific datasets in Kikuyu and Swahili.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Human-centered evaluation<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 We conducted field tests using real-world audio to evaluate model performance. This approach revealed key insights into model failure modes and informed improvements in data augmentation and evaluation metrics.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading h3\" id=\"why-it-matters\">Why it matters<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>AI cannot serve the world unless it is built by the world. The Indaba\u2019s mission to strengthen African AI aligns with Microsoft\u2019s commitment to building AI that is inclusive, globally relevant and culturally grounded.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Microsoft is honored to sponsor Deep Learning Indaba\u202f2025 (opens in new tab), Africa\u2019s premier AI and machine learning gathering. The event will take place in Kigali, Rwanda from 17\u201322\u202fAugust\u202f2025. This year\u2019s theme, Urunana\u202f\u2013 Hand in Hand for AI in Africa embodies solidarity and cooperation. Urunana highlights the need to bridge gaps between academia and industry, [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":1149283,"template":"","meta":{"msr-url-field":"","msr-podcast-episode":"","msrModifiedDate":"","msrModifiedDateEnabled":false,"ep_exclude_from_search":false,"_classifai_error":"","msr_startdate":"2025-08-17","msr_enddate":"2025-08-22","msr_location":"Kigali, Rwanda","msr_expirationdate":"","msr_event_recording_link":"","msr_event_link":"","msr_event_link_redirect":false,"msr_event_time":"","msr_hide_region":false,"msr_private_event":false,"msr_hide_image_in_river":null,"footnotes":""},"research-area":[13556],"msr-region":[243014],"msr-event-type":[197941],"msr-video-type":[],"msr-locale":[268875],"msr-program-audience":[],"msr-post-option":[269148,269142],"msr-impact-theme":[],"class_list":["post-1148327","msr-event","type-msr-event","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","msr-research-area-artificial-intelligence","msr-region-middle-east-africa","msr-event-type-conferences","msr-locale-en_us","msr-post-option-approved-for-river","msr-post-option-include-in-river"],"msr_about":"<!-- wp:msr\/event-details {\"title\":\"Microsoft at Deep Learning Indaba\u202f2025\",\"backgroundColor\":\"auburn\"} \/-->\n\n<!-- wp:msr\/content-tabs -->\n<!-- wp:msr\/content-tab -->\n<!-- wp:paragraph {\"placeholder\":\"Add Event Overview content\u2026\"} -->\n<p>Microsoft is honored to sponsor <a href=\"https:\/\/deeplearningindaba.com\/2025\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><strong>Deep Learning Indaba\u202f2025<\/strong><\/a>, Africa\u2019s premier AI and machine learning gathering. The event will take place in Kigali, Rwanda from 17\u201322\u202fAugust\u202f2025. This year\u2019s theme, <em>Urunana\u202f\u2013 Hand in Hand for AI in Africa<\/em> embodies solidarity and cooperation. Urunana highlights the need to bridge gaps between academia and industry, established researchers and emerging talent, traditional knowledge systems and modern AI applications. As a longtime partner of the Indaba, Microsoft shares this vision of inclusive, community driven AI. The Indaba brings together research students, academics, research organizations, startups and other groups from across the continent. The six-day program features keynote talks, practical tutorials, hackathons, research showcases, workshops, and awards.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>Microsoft researchers will participate in talks, panels and workshops aligned with these Indaba themes:&nbsp;<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:list -->\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Trustworthy and Ethical AI<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Building culturally and ethically relevant frameworks that ensure AI systems are aligned with African values and societal needs.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>AI for Business and Finance<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Exploring AI solutions tailored to regional financial ecosystems and inclusive economic growth.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Robotics and Automation<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Advancing robotics and machine learning for applications in healthcare, agriculture, energy, and manufacturing.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Climate-Resilient AI<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Applying AI to address Africa\u2019s pressing climate challenges through adaptation and sustainability.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Data in African AI<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Addressing data scarcity, governance, sovereignty, and inclusion in the African AI ecosystem.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Health and Life Sciences<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Leveraging AI and data science to transform healthcare delivery, genomics, and public health across the continent.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Human\u2013AI Interaction<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Designing AI systems that meet people where they are and integrate seamlessly into existing workflows.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Quantum Machine Learning<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Exploring how quantum computing can advance AI applications in health, climate, and finance.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Responsible AI Leadership<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Elevating African AI practices and research into the global conversation on responsible AI.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>NeuroAI and Brain-Inspired Models<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Bridging neuroscience and AI to advance brain-inspired models, interfaces, and understanding.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Natural Language Processing for Africa<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Pushing forward NLP research to support the diversity of African languages and local contexts.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Advanced Compute<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 Exploring cutting-edge computing technologies\u2014including neuromorphic, in-memory, and quantum\u2014for Africa\u2019s AI future.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\n\n<!-- wp:heading {\"className\":\"h3\"} -->\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading h3\" id=\"our-research-at-indaba-2025\">Our research at Indaba 2025<\/h2>\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\n\n<!-- wp:list -->\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Equitable AI research at Microsoft Research<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 At Indaba 2025, Microsoft Research is proud to showcase our work on Equitable AI, led by teams across Africa, India, and Redmond. Our research focuses on building human-centered, linguistically and culturally inclusive AI systems that serve underrepresented communities.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Agriculture copilots for the Global South<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 In collaboration with Digital Green, Project Gecko develops multilingual, multimodal AI copilots to support smallholder farmers in Kenya and India. These copilots enable farmers to interact via voice, text, and video in local languages like Kikuyu and Swahili, improving access to climate-smart agricultural knowledge.&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Speech technology for low-resource languages<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 We benchmarked and fine-tuned state-of-the-art ASR models\u2014including Phi-4 and Whisper\u2014on domain-specific datasets in Kikuyu and Swahili.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item -->\n\n<!-- wp:list-item -->\n<li><strong>Human-centered evaluation<\/strong>&nbsp;\u2013 We conducted field tests using real-world audio to evaluate model performance. This approach revealed key insights into model failure modes and informed improvements in data augmentation and evaluation metrics.&nbsp;&nbsp;<\/li>\n<!-- \/wp:list-item --><\/ul>\n<!-- \/wp:list -->\n\n<!-- wp:heading {\"className\":\"h3\"} -->\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading h3\" id=\"why-it-matters\">Why it matters<\/h2>\n<!-- \/wp:heading -->\n\n<!-- wp:paragraph -->\n<p>AI cannot serve the world unless it is built by the world. The Indaba\u2019s mission to strengthen African AI aligns with Microsoft\u2019s commitment to building AI that is inclusive, globally relevant and culturally grounded.<\/p>\n<!-- \/wp:paragraph -->\n\n<!-- wp:spacer {\"height\":\"30px\"} -->\n<div style=\"height:30px\" aria-hidden=\"true\" class=\"wp-block-spacer\"><\/div>\n<!-- \/wp:spacer -->\n<!-- \/wp:msr\/content-tab -->\n<!-- \/wp:msr\/content-tabs -->","tab-content":[],"msr_startdate":"2025-08-17","msr_enddate":"2025-08-22","msr_event_time":"","msr_location":"Kigali, Rwanda","msr_event_link":"","msr_event_recording_link":"","msr_startdate_formatted":"August 17, 2025","msr_register_text":"Watch now","msr_cta_link":"","msr_cta_text":"","msr_cta_bi_name":"","featured_image_thumbnail":"<img width=\"831\" height=\"468\" src=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Microsoft-at-Indaba-2025.jpg\" class=\"img-object-cover\" alt=\"Microsoft at Indaba 2025 | collage of photos from the event\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Microsoft-at-Indaba-2025.jpg 831w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Microsoft-at-Indaba-2025-300x169.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Microsoft-at-Indaba-2025-768x433.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Microsoft-at-Indaba-2025-655x368.jpg 655w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Microsoft-at-Indaba-2025-240x135.jpg 240w, https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Microsoft-at-Indaba-2025-640x360.jpg 640w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 831px) 100vw, 831px\" \/>","event_excerpt":"Microsoft is honored to sponsor Deep Learning Indaba\u202f2025 (opens in new tab), Africa\u2019s premier AI and machine learning gathering. The event will take place in Kigali, Rwanda from 17\u201322\u202fAugust\u202f2025. This year\u2019s theme, Urunana\u202f\u2013 Hand in Hand for AI in Africa embodies solidarity and cooperation. Urunana highlights the need to bridge gaps between academia and industry, established researchers and emerging talent, traditional knowledge systems and modern AI applications. As a longtime partner of the Indaba, Microsoft&hellip;","msr_research_lab":[1021599],"related-researchers":[],"msr_impact_theme":[],"related-academic-programs":[],"related-groups":[696544],"related-projects":[],"related-opportunities":[],"related-publications":[],"related-videos":[],"related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event\/1148327","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/msr-event"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event\/1148327\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1149284,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event\/1148327\/revisions\/1149284"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1149283"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1148327"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"msr-research-area","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/research-area?post=1148327"},{"taxonomy":"msr-region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-region?post=1148327"},{"taxonomy":"msr-event-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-event-type?post=1148327"},{"taxonomy":"msr-video-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-video-type?post=1148327"},{"taxonomy":"msr-locale","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-locale?post=1148327"},{"taxonomy":"msr-program-audience","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-program-audience?post=1148327"},{"taxonomy":"msr-post-option","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-post-option?post=1148327"},{"taxonomy":"msr-impact-theme","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.microsoft.com\/en-us\/research\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/msr-impact-theme?post=1148327"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}