Project Teams
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The Bɛ̀bɛ̀i Engine
The Bɛ̀bɛ̀i Engine is an interactive AI music tool co-created with the Baka community of Cameroon. It enables a real-time musical “conversation” between humans and AI, inspired by Baka choral traditions, Liquindi (water-drumming), and yodeling. The project safeguards endangered heritage while opening new creative pathways for performance, improvisation, and cultural exchange.
Artist About 
Joshua Kroon (Cameroon) is a multidisciplinary artist whose work spans sound, digital media, and cultural storytelling. Winner of the Goethe-Découverte 04 prize and the Fak’ugesi theme-song competition, he works to strengthen creative ecosystems across Central Africa. Through the FRED Movement, he empowers young artists while championing cultural preservation.
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Engineer About 
Emmanuel Apetsi is a visionary AI/ML engineer and award‑winning innovator with over a decade of experience building open‑source AI infrastructure across Africa. As Executive Director of OpenAI4Africa and Founder of SISU AI, he leads groundbreaking work in multilingual edge‑AI systems and Africa’s first indigenous large‑language‑model initiative.
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Heritage in Code
Heritage in Code preserves Africa’s instrumental heritage by enabling communities to upload and document traditional sounds in a secure digital archive. The system offers curated collections, cultural context, and an AI-powered fusion tool allowing users to blend heritage material with contemporary music elements. Built-in royalty features ensure fair compensation for cultural contributors.
Artist About 
Linda Nyabundi is a multidisciplinary Kenyan creative working across music, cultural production, and digital innovation. With more than a decade of experience—including leading multi-country operations under the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program—she now directs House of Abundance, where she curates cultural events blending sound, fashion, and African heritage. Through her platform Queendom, she amplifies the artistry and narratives of women in Hip-Hop and R&B across Africa and the diaspora. She is the creator of Heritage AI, exploring how artificial intelligence can preserve and reinterpret African sonic traditions.
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Gebregziabihier Nigusie is an Ethiopian lecturer and AI researcher whose work spans natural-language processing, clinical imaging, and machine-learning for low-resource settings. With academic contributions presented at MICCAI and the Deep Learning Indaba, he advances inclusive, culturally informed AI applications in health, language technology, and digital preservation.
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ZAZI
Zazi is an AI driven creative tool that listens to an artist’s voice, lyrics, or ideas and generates African inspired rhythms, melodies, harmonies, stories, and visuals. It aims to preserve African musical traditions while developing new technological pathways for artists to experiment and collaborate with AI.
Artist About 
Umlilo is an Afro-futurist artist whose practice spans music, performance, 3D animation, VR, and festival curation. Their work has appeared in major international exhibitions and digital art platforms. Umlilo leads Zazi’s creative direction, cultural framework, and artistic experimentation.
Engineer About 
Gideon Gyimah is a Ghanaian AI engineer specialising in enterprise-scale speech, banking, and multilingual AI systems. He has deployed voice-AI infrastructure for financial institutions across Africa, led UNESCO’s multilingual disaster-communication AI, and fine-tuned Whisper models for African languages now used in real-world, community-impact deployments.
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Bina.ai
This project is building an AI-powered platform that creates African children’s music and stories, inspired by real cultural traditions and age-appropriate learning themes. The platform blends creative exploration with education, using Africa’s rhythms, folktales, and visual languages to help children learn through play, imagination, and sound.
Artist About 
Ehinome Ogbeide (Nigeria) is a digital strategist and music executive known for amplifying the global impact of African artists. He has shaped the digital success of stars like Rema and Ayra Starr, and now brings his expertise in storytelling, branding, and cultural strategy to the AI & African Music Project.
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Engineer About 
Muhigiri Ashuza Albin is a Congolese software engineer and creative technologist whose work blends machine learning with cultural expression. A former Microsoft Learn Student Ambassador, he has built AI platforms supporting agriculture and financial systems, informed by his background as a lifelong choir singer and advocate for culturally aware AI design.
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TIMah AI
TIMah AI is a digital heritage platform preserving traditional Kikuyu music through field recording, cultural documentation, and a secure online archive. Users can explore songs, cultural context, lyrics, and stories, while the platform prepares AI tools for transcription and future educational use. It prioritises community consent, cultural ownership, and long-term preservation.
Artist About 
Tora Josephat Nyamosi (Kenya) is an AI music producer and digital creator known for innovative AI-assisted composition and sound design. After producing hundreds of modern music tracks and managing high-growth YouTube channels, he now applies AI to document and preserve traditional African music. His work blends creativity, technology, and cultural heritage.
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Engineer About 
Lawrence Moruye is a Kenyan data scientist and AI engineer with a Master’s in Machine Intelligence from AIMS. His work spans speech-technology, recommender systems, predictive modelling, and deep-learning applications across sectors including healthcare, agriculture, e-commerce, and fintech, with a strong focus on African-language technologies and applied AI innovation.