Two South African start-ups, Vambo AI and PropelMapper, have been recognised as winners of Meta’s Llama Impact Grant, aimed at supporting organisations and individuals in Sub-Saharan Africa. This initiative encourages the development of solutions tailored to the region’s needs by leveraging Llama, Meta’s open source large language model.
In March, Meta, in collaboration with Data Science Africa, called for proposals from across the region. The grant aims to enhance Africa’s artificial intelligence (AI) and innovation ecosystems, furthering Meta’s commitment to this growing sector.
Each winning team has been awarded $20,000 (approximately R346,000), along with opportunities for technical mentorship, networking, and engagement with stakeholders to boost their growth and societal impact. Sherry Dzinerova, a director at Meta, noted the impressive number of applications received this year, highlighting the vibrant AI landscape in Africa. She expressed excitement about supporting these innovative projects and the positive changes they may bring to their communities.
Llama models are already being utilised in various projects, such as localising educational materials and broadening access to medical information in low-resource areas. The latest version, Llama 3.3, is freely available for organisations to use and adapt.
The Llama Impact Grant, launched in October 2023, has attracted over 800 applications from more than 90 countries. Previous finalists have included initiatives like Farmer Chat, which supports smallholder farmers, and Jacaranda Health’s Prompts, focused on maternal health.
Details on the Winning Start-Ups:
- Vambo AI (South Africa): Co-founded by Chido Dzinotyiwei, Vambo AI is building multilingual AI infrastructure to support translation, transcription, generation, and search across over 60 African languages, treating language as critical infrastructure for digital inclusion.
- PropelMapper (South Africa): Founded by Reghardt Adriaan Pretorius and Mark Donne, PropelMapper provides agricultural advisors with AI tools to create tailored podcasts for farmers, generate professional reports, and utilise satellite imagery for intervention alerts, enhancing productivity and food security.
- Radease (Nigeria): Led by Taiwo Oyewole, Radease simplifies access to safe medicines for underserved communities by providing patent vendors with AI tools via WhatsApp, improving access to trusted health information.
- TeenApp (Uganda): Rahman Sanya heads this digital health solution, which offers youth-friendly sexual and reproductive health education and services, guided by responsible AI principles.
- Easy Read Africa (Rwanda): Isaac Manzi leads this initiative to simplify complex documents into accessible text and visuals, making information easier to understand for individuals with cognitive and learning challenges.