Pelonomi Moiloa
Lelapa AI

Pelonomi Moiloa, co-founder of the South African research lab Lelapa AI, is on a mission to decolonise technology. Her work is driven by a simple conviction: AI models developed in the West often fail in Africa because they neither understand the continent’s languages nor reflect its social realities. She points to the example of Western AI systems deployed in South Africa that are trained almost exclusively on English-language data. As a result, they can unintentionally reinforce the structural inequalities inherited from apartheid—for instance, by reproducing bias in decisions about bank loans for residents of certain neighbourhoods. That is why she co-founded Lelapa—meaning home in both Sesotho and Setswana, two of South Africa’s official languages. The lab trains AI not only in African languages, but also in the philosophies, cultural traditions and worldviews that shape African societies. Named by Time magazine among the 100 Most Influential People in AI, Moiloa believes that, when designed responsibly, artificial intelligence can “help humans become better.”