How Africa’s AI boom is leaving 100 million disabled citizens behind

Over 100 million Africans live with a disability, yet local sign languages, speech accents, and street layouts are virtually absent from global AI models. JOHN ADOYI, in this feature, writes about the Hub for AI and Disability Inclusion (HAIDI) and the African Disability Data Network (ADDN): the new pan-African coalition building the data rails needed to fix AI’s disability desert. When Francis Elendu, a secondary school teacher in Enugu, in southeastern Nigeria, wants to go out, he picks up his