Our Approach
We partner with organizations to co-develop AI technologies that are rigorously researched and deeply rooted in local contexts. By ensuring these tools effectively address community needs, we reinforce rights, foster inclusion, and enhance civic participation. Through this approach, empowered communities can meaningfully influence decision-making and drive sustainable democratic transformation.
Context
Across East Africa, global AI technologies often fail to address local realities. Limited infrastructure, diverse languages, and distinct political contexts create barriers to meaningful civic participation.
We build inclusive community-led AI solutions grounded in local voices, ensuring tools are not just accessible but truly serve the people who use them.
Low-tech, scalable solutions
Multilingual design and communication
Respectful of local realities
Inclusive and accessible support
Our Approach
Collaborative
We co-create solutions with communities, partners, and practitioners, centering lived experiences, shared knowledge, and mutual accountability.
Impact-driven
We design our work to deliver tangible, lasting outcomes, driven by the needs of communities and guided by clear measures of social impact.
Contextualized
We ground our work in the lived realities of the communities we serve, shaped by local cultural, political, and social contexts to ensure relevance, trust, and impact.
Our 2024-2026 strategic pillars
From 2024 to 2026, our strategic pillars will guide us in localizing AI technologies, deepening partnerships, and delivering measurable, community-led impact. Grounded in local realities, our work will strengthen civic infrastructure and expand access across East Africa.
We will co-create with local organizations through trusted relationships, shared knowledge, and mutual accountability.
Key Focus Areas
Context-specific tools
We will focus on localizing AI technologies to fit the political, cultural, and social contexts of the communities our partners serve. By strengthening the technical capacity of local organizations, we aim to advance rights, inclusion, and meaningful civic participation from the ground up.
Data for action & insight
Our unique position enables us to generate rich, granular data. We will prioritize turning this raw data into actionable insights that inform policy, empower advocacy campaigns, and generate knowledge to provide a clear understanding of trends in digital rights and civic participation across East Africa.
Cultivating Digital Resilience
We will further identify and support the conditions necessary for our partner organizations in East Africa to be technologically and operationally resilient. This involves promoting alternative, context-appropriate hardware and software, and delivering impactful, localized capacity-building.
Collaborative ecosystems
We are committed to nurturing and expanding networks that embrace responsible, ethical, and critical perspectives on AI and data. We foster cross-movement collaboration to break down barriers to action, learning, and collective progress.
Our Core Values
Rooted in Context
We ground our work in the political, cultural, and social realities of the communities we serve.
Impact
We focus on creating meaningful, measurable change that improves lives and strengthens systems.
Collaboration
We work alongside partners and communities, building together through trust and shared purpose.
Learning & Reflection
We embrace continuous learning, adapting our work through feedback, insight, and lived experience.
Integrity
We act with honesty, transparency, and accountability, building trust and upholding strong ethical standards in all we do.
Open & Sharing
We share knowledge, tools, and learnings openly to support collective progress and equity.
Learn more
Explore our work, discover our AI tools, or get in touch to see how we can collaborate in strengthening digital rights and civic participation across East Africa.