LINGUA Africa Open Call
Supports African-language AI development through grants and compute resources focused on language inclusion.
⚠ This may reflect a past cycle — verify the current call on the funder's site.
LINGUA Africa is a co-funded open call for inclusive AI language projects focused on African languages, jointly supported by Microsoft AI for Good Lab, the Gates Foundation, Google.org, and the Masakhane African Languages Hub. The application deadline is 15 June 2026, and all proposals are submitted through the Masakhane Submittable portal. The call is structured around three award tiers: Data Creation awards of up to $50,000 in cash plus up to $50,000 in Azure compute credits; Model or Tool Development awards of up to $100,000 cash plus $100,000 compute; and Sectoral Applications awards of up to $250,000 cash plus $400,000 in Azure compute credits, making the maximum combined value of a single award $650,000.
Eligible applicants include nonprofits, universities, research institutes, social enterprises, cultural organizations, startups, and consortia. Organizations based outside Africa may apply provided they demonstrate meaningful partnership with Africa-based institutions, communities, or implementers. The call targets applied AI work in African languages across six sectors: agriculture, food security, education, healthcare and public health, financial inclusion, and government or civic services. A hard requirement for all applicants is that supported projects must contribute openly licensed resources with documentation and governance enabling reuse in research, open models, and practical applications — proprietary or closed-data projects are excluded.
Proposals are evaluated by the four co-funders collectively, with scoring criteria applied to both the technical approach and the impact pathway for target communities. Applicants should ensure their project maps clearly to at least one of the six focus sectors, identifies the African language(s) addressed, and articulates a realistic open-licensing and governance plan before submission. The Sectoral Applications tier in particular represents one of the highest-value cash opportunities currently available through any Microsoft AI for Good program.
Inclusive AI for African languages applied across agriculture, food security, education, healthcare, financial inclusion, and civic services, with openly licensed outputs required.
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