NAIROBI, Kenya Oct 9 – Kenyan Kathleen Siminyu is among the six Africans honoured by Project Management Institute (PMI), the leading professional organisation for project management and the authority for a growing global community of millions of project professionals with a place on the prestigious Future50 list.
The list features 50 outstanding Rising Leaders transforming the world and represents a new cohort of project professionals driving transformation across all PMI regions and industries.
Siminyu, a Kiswahili Machine Learning Fellow at Mozilla Foundation, has been recognised by PMI for democratising machine learning and bringing speech and language technology to underserved communities.
The list also features three Nigerians—Aisha Garba, Tosin Oshinowo, and John Ndubuisi, along with Manuel Praia from Angola and Abdalah Maiguizo from Niger.
In the world today, global megatrends such as digital disruption, demographic shifts, and the climate crisis are driving the future of business and society. At the same time, the global economy needs 25 million new project professionals by 2030. The 2023 Future 50 honourees collectively set an example and lead the charge in problem-solving while creating a better world through projects.
As someone who lives and breathes data science and machine learning, Siminyu understands better than most the awe-inspiring potential of speech and language technologies. From voice assistants to text-to-speech apps, they have the potential to reshape how people interact with their homes, cars, jobs, and even one another. But these innovations typically only work across certain languages leaving them out of reach for millions of Africans.
She out to change that. “The goal of my efforts is to ensure that our African languages are not left behind,” Siminyu says.
Siminyu is leading a project at the Mozilla Foundation to help computers understand Kiswahili as it’s spoken and written. There are more than 200 million Kiswahili speakers, and by annotating the language for a variety of machine learning tasks, her team is building speech transcription models that help level the playing field. That means Kiswahili speakers will increasingly have access to tools like videoconference apps and talk-to-text services.
Congratulating the F50s, George Asamani, MD, Sub Saharan Africa, PMI, said, “We remain committed to equipping the youth with the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to not only embrace change but also to be the drivers of it. Your achievements today are a testament to Africa’s incredible talent and potential.”
“You are the architects of the future, and your vision and determination will undoubtedly lead us to new heights and amplify the community’s impact.”
The Future50 Award is an annual feature of the Project Management Institute, which has been running since its commencement in 2020. To read about what passions and missions drive the next generation of talent, visit PMI.org/Future50.
