Research Saturday Week 9: Cheetah

​This week at Research Saturday, we’re reviewing Cheetah: Natural Language Generation for 517 African Languages (Adebara et al., 2024) ; a landmark work introducing a multilingual NLG model designed to support 517 African languages and language varieties.

​The paper sheds light on how massive multilingual models can begin to close the language divide in global NLP by respecting Africa’s linguistic diversity, enabling more inclusive, culturally grounded language tools.

​In our session, we will:

• ​Summarize what Cheetah achieves and how it was built

• ​Discuss why African-language support in NLG matters now

• ​Identify gaps and challenges that remain for real-world adoption

• ​Brainstorm what it takes to contribute from within our community

​

​Date: Saturday, Dec. 6 2025
Time: 8 PM WAT
Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2401.01053

​Join us as we imagine a future where AI speaks the languages of Africa.