Michael Odokara-Okigbo
Bio
Updated 07/04/26 · Provided by member · VerifiedMichael Odokara-Okigbo is the CEO and Co-Founder of NKENNEAi, an African-language AI company developing translation, speech, and edge-deployable AI systems for underserved languages and communities. He serves as Principal Investigator on NKENNEAi’s NSF SBIR-funded research, leading the development and commercialization of text-to-text, speech-to-text, and text-to-speech technologies for languages including Yoruba, Swahili, and Nigerian Pidgin. Under his leadership, NKENNE has grown to more than 480,000 users and has received recognition from Apple and Google for its work expanding access to African-language technology. Michael has also led partnerships and engagements with public-sector, telecommunications, education, and technology stakeholders in the United States and Africa, including work connected to Nigeria’s National Information Technology Development Agency. His work focuses on ensuring that advanced AI systems are useful, safe, and accessible across linguistic and geographic boundaries. He is particularly interested in multilingual AI evaluation, low-resource language safety, edge AI, and the risks created when model safeguards are tested primarily in English.
Links
Updated 07/04/26 · Provided by member · VerifiedProjects
Grants
Updated 07/04/26 · By grantmaking.aiNo grants recorded.