Dr. Stephen Edward Moore, a senior lecturer at Ghana’s University of Cape Coast (UCC) Department of Mathematics, has been given a Google Research Grant worth $30,000 to continue his study on artificial intelligence (AI).
The money will be used to enhance research in Natural Language Processing (NLP) for low-resource languages in Ghana and Africa, according to Dr. Stephen Moore, a lecturer in the Department of Mathematics and co-founder of Ghana Natural Language Processing (Ghana NLP).
Dr. Stephen Moore, Senior Lecturer, UCC Department of Mathematics. Recipient of the first Google Research Grant in Ghana
The field of AI known as NLP focuses on teaching computers to process language similarly to how humans do. Since 2020, Dr. Moore and the Ghana NLP team have been working to create text and speech translation tools for low-resource languages including Twi, Dagbani, Ewe, Ga, Guruni, and Igbo.
Dr. Moore gave a presentation on the state of NLP development in Ghana and the benefits of teaching young people in this discipline at the reopening of Google’s new headquarters in Accra, Ghana in 2022. Additionally, he introduced Khaya, the first translator of the Ghanaian language, which was created by the partner business Algorine and Ghana NLP. The software intends to provide a unified translation for many African languages using cutting-edge NLP language models.
Google research Grant & Ghana
The Google Research Grant is the first of its type to be given to a researcher from Ghana. Google’s funding honors Ghana NLP’s work in creating essential tools and instructing volunteers in NLP. As a social organization, Ghana NLP is dedicated to providing Ghanaians with access to NLP through training seminars and workshops.
A Google spokesman commented that; the funding is a credit to the hard work and devotion of Dr. Moore and the team at Ghana NLP and as such, Google are honored to assist them in promoting NLP research in Ghana and Africa.
Dr. Stephen Moore over the years has attended and presented at forums in Africa and beyond. Most of his teaching assistants at UCC over the years also gained scholarships to to undergo postgraduate studies at USA.
He also participated in writing Ghana Artificial Intelligence policy for the government to implement.