Tonative Data Academy
African Language Data Curation for AI
A 6-week intensive program equipping you with skills to collect, annotate, and curate African language data for artificial intelligence and natural language processing applications.
Why Join the Data Academy?
Designed for participants from diverse backgrounds - no prior technical experience required.
6-Week Intensive
Structured, focused curriculum designed to get you job-ready fast
Live Online Sessions
Weekly live classes on Google Meet, recorded and shared for future reference
Expert Tutors
Learn from leading African linguists and NLP practitioners
Certification
Earn a certificate upon completing 75% attendance and program requirements
No Prior Experience
Open to all backgrounds - engineers, linguistics, communities, or complete beginners
Code of Conduct
A respectful, inclusive, and professionally moderated learning environment
Program Overview
This program is designed to be completed over 6 weeks (plus a pre-requisite onboarding session) through a blend of live online sessions, self-paced reading materials, and interactive projects. Onboarding takes place on September 6, 2026, with weekly teaching running from September 7 to October 16, 2026. Registration closes August 30, 2026.
All live sessions are conducted via Google Meet links shared through Google Classroom, where you will find all course materials, assignments, and resources.
Live sessions run on Tuesdays and Thursdays at minimum, with Friday as an optional third class (maximum of three classes per week). Each class lasts 1 hour 30 minutes: 45 minutes of teaching followed by 35 minutes of classwork or interactive session.
Tutors post all teaching materials for the week on Google Classroom, and an assignment is given at the end of every class, marked and released the following Friday.
Session Details
- Tuesdays and Thursdays, with an optional Friday session, weekly
- Each class runs 1 hr 30 mins (45 min teaching + 35 min classwork)
- All materials via Google Classroom
- Certificate upon 75% attendance completion
What You Will Learn
By the end of the program, participants will be able to:
- Appreciate the linguistic diversity of African languages and their cultural significance
- Understand the fundamentals of data collection, annotation, and validation
- Apply no-code tools and techniques to curate African language data for AI applications
- Critically evaluate the ethical considerations around African language data
- Contribute meaningfully to open-source African language datasets
Assessments
- In-class quizzes at tutors discretion
- Assignment given after every class, scores released the following Friday
- Capstone project in Week 6
Curriculum Structure
A pre-requisite onboarding session plus 6 weekly modules, running September 6 – October 16, 2026, covering everything from African linguistics to capstone project delivery.
Onboarding & Program Kick-off
Introduction to the program and soft skills, including the Google Workspace environment and communication channels such as email and Slack.
Introduction to Language
African languages and linguistics, phonetics, morphology, orthography, and language variation (dialects, registers, sociolinguistics).
Introduction to NLP
Introduction to Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Deep Learning; intro to NLP; structured vs. unstructured and quantitative vs. qualitative data; data preprocessing; types of language datasets (audio, text, MT) and corpus-based approaches; training vs. evaluation (benchmarking) datasets; and dataset documentation, including Hugging Face.
African Data Collection & Preparation
Audio data curation (recording tools, audio format, background noise, noise cancellation, sample rates) and text data types and curation methods; data validation for audio and text through automated and manual methods; and quality control frameworks.
Data Ethics and Governance
Data policy and governance frameworks, data law, and data quality principles (consistency, coverage, edge cases); ethics around consent, data ownership, cultural sensitivity, and community benefit; and equitable licensing frameworks for African data, including Creative Commons and novel frameworks like NOODL and Esethu.
Data Annotation Tools & Techniques
Hands-on training with industry-standard tools (Label Studio, Prodigy, or custom platforms); text classification and PoS tagging; named entity recognition for African contexts; sentiment analysis considerations across cultures; machine translation annotation and evaluation; plus further reading on speech, image, and video annotation.
Capstone Project
Data documentation and open-source data translation, validation, and publication on Hugging Face to close out the program.
Your Tutors
Each module has a dedicated primary tutor and a backup tutor.
| Week | Module |
|---|---|
| Pre-requisite | Onboarding & Program Kick-off |
| Week 1 | Introduction to Language |
| Week 2 | Introduction to NLP |
| Week 3 | African Data Collection & Preparation |
| Week 4 | Data Ethics and Governance |
| Week 5 | Data Annotation Tools & Techniques |
| Week 6 | Capstone Project |
Technical Requirements
- Laptop or desktop computer
- Stable internet connection
- A Google account
- Join all class links before deadline
Communication Channels
- Course materials and assignments via Google Classroom
- Slack for announcements and informal discussions
- All live classes recorded and shared via email
- Support: Email academy@tonative.org for any questions or issues
Ready to Shape the Future of African AI?
Join the next cohort of the Tonative Data Academy. No prior experience required, just a passion for African languages and AI.
- 6 weeks of live instruction
- Access to all course materials
- Expert tutor support
- Certificate of completion
- Slack community access
- Recorded class replays
Questions? Email academy@tonative.org