Enacting Afrotopia: African-language AI and Alternative Digital Futures

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What could AI look like with African languages and aspirations at its heart? Across the continent, initiatives are developing infrastructures for languages largely absent from dominant AI systems, raising questions not only about language inclusion but also about who participates in imagining and building technological futures. Drawing on Felwine Sarr’s concept of Afrotopia, the talk explores “what African-language AI might teach us about how alternative technological possibilities are imagined and brought into being.”

Amanda Haarman is a Visiting Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for African Studies and received her Ph.D. from Copenhagen Business School in 2025. Her research explores cultural entrepreneurship as a form of worldmaking, African-led language AI initiatives, and the implications of generative AI for creative work in Ghana.