Nkenne Brings African Languages Into the AI Era (Full Transcript)

[00:00:03] Speaker 1: My work is based on one idea, skills are an infrastructure.

[00:00:07] Speaker 2: I started in the code because I wish I had this resource. Using AI tools, Questcraft brings young people back into shared storytelling.

[00:00:16] Speaker 1: I'm taking science out of its boring box and putting it in a cool science box. Kennet AI, we're building and developing translation technology. This is the perfect moment for solo entrepreneurs. Digital platforms like Zoom now allow small teams to build technologies that can reach millions.

[00:00:38] Speaker 3: Hi, Michael.

[00:00:39] Speaker 1: Hi, everyone.

[00:00:40] Speaker 4: How are you?

[00:00:41] Speaker 1: I'm good. How are you?

[00:00:43] Speaker 3: Doing well. Thank you for joining us today.

[00:00:54] Speaker 1: It's not easy to be living your dream. Being a musician, it's really hard to make money. Mic check. Can you hear me?

[00:01:02] Speaker 4: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

[00:01:10] Speaker 1: We'll do like three takes. So it's taught me a lot about resilience, number one. It's been a fun ride. I learned how to stretch a dollar, how to elevate myself to make sure that there's money coming in, and to be risking things every day. So you have to learn how to elevate and bypass rejection and move forward. So as an artist, you have to be an entrepreneur and a solo entrepreneur. When it comes to doing what I'm doing, I thought that my life was just going to be a musician. I'm still very surprised that tech is now a part of my life. So my parents, their family were Nigerians. Growing up in the States, Nigerian culture was all around me, whether it was music, food, reprimands. It's like my mom's cooking.

[00:02:37] Speaker 4: It reminds me of my heritage. Brings me back to my childhood.

[00:02:43] Speaker 1: The Nkenne business was started in 2021 during the pandemic. We were all having to be in the house. And whenever my mind is idle, that's never a good thing.

[00:02:56] Speaker 5: We've moved so far from the pandemic, but it really was a moment where culturally things changed. And it really opened up for people their imaginations, their possibility to be creative for themselves and to run a business virtually.

[00:03:13] Speaker 1: Everything was closed. So I wanted to do something and try to learn my native language of Igbo. YouTube, you know, YouTube education is how everyone tries to learn things nowadays. But that wasn't really working with me. So with my mother's suggestion, she said, if you cannot find the solution, you should create it. From that, we created Nkenne, which is our language learning and translation entity.

[00:03:41] Speaker 4: Hi Michael.

[00:03:42] Speaker 1: Hey, Okumis, how are you doing, brother?

[00:03:44] Speaker 6: I'm doing good.

[00:03:45] Speaker 1: All right, let's get started, please. Nkenne is a business that teaches African languages and helps users also translate African languages. And for businesses or government agencies, we also have an AI translation API where users or individuals can download the API to process African language translations. For the first few years, it was very hard to find capital to build a lot of rejection. I had to use my music money until it was able to pay for itself. But rejection is something that I'm very used to being an artist. It actually made me go harder. I knew I had an important product and I knew I'd find a market for it. And language learning is super important. Languages are the creation and the history of human existence.

[00:04:36] Speaker 4: Nkenne means of the mother in Igbo.

[00:04:40] Speaker 1: Nkenne actually means six different things, but Nkenne, the pronunciation, that specific pronunciation means of the mother. But Nkenne also happens to be my mother's middle name. So it fit in all different aspects to call the company Nkenne because we're teaching mother tongues. My mother was instrumental in helping build it. The work for me is super important because for so long, the continent of Africa has been left aside in so many different avenues. You see how people view the continent in the West. There's a perception that's not true.

[00:05:23] Speaker 4: Launching a tech company was completely foreign to me, but I was passionate about it.

[00:05:28] Speaker 1: I saw the need and so I decided to take the leap. The continent of Africa is growing and it's growing fast. So there's a lot of upside, a lot of financial opportunity. We're exactly where we want to be. Are you working with AB with the website guide too, or is that more so AB's thing when it comes to the AI updates?

[00:05:48] Speaker 5: Michael's business, taking African languages and making them accessible through an African language learning app is phenomenal. He's really meeting people where they are and meeting a need that was untapped in the market. One of the things that Marla and I wanted to do today was share something with you. You not only made the list of 50, but you are in the top five recipients.

[00:06:14] Speaker 4: Wow.

[00:06:15] Speaker 1: What? What?

[00:06:18] Speaker 4: That's crazy.

[00:06:20] Speaker 5: Really? Congratulations. Yes.

[00:06:24] Speaker 1: I saw the opportunity to apply to Zoom and I felt like because we use Zoom every day, all day, it felt pertinent to what we're building. Parish, before we go into this though, have we've seen more data come through for those ads? Are we still performing strong or do we still not have enough information to know? One of my favorite products that Zoom has released is their AI meeting notes tools. We have utilized that to a T. That has been so successful and us remaining honest with ourselves on the progress that we're trying to hit. So AI has been a game changer.

[00:06:54] Speaker 4: Double A, just remind me, I want us to look at the month progress from the past two months as well. Yeah?

[00:07:00] Speaker 1: To get the call, not only were we top 50, but top five, I was surprised, but I'm also a very competitive person and I know that life is very short. So it's on me to get done what I want to get done in this life.

[00:07:13] Speaker 3: In addition to ongoing support from Zoom, you will receive $30,000 in grant funds to accelerate your business venture.

[00:07:23] Speaker 1: That's crazy. Thank you. That's crazy. Okay. Crazy. Okay.

[00:07:28] Speaker 5: Well, we're thrilled that you're going to be on the list and even more so in the top five.

[00:07:36] Speaker 3: Going through your application was really inspiring, really different. And so we're excited to go on this journey with you.

[00:07:44] Speaker 1: I'm so excited. There's tons of different ways where tech and music intertwine and connect because they can and they do. And that's where the magic is sometimes. Being an artist has been essential for, and can they elevate? Yeah, I don't really have a lot of questions because we met on Tuesday and everything was copacetic. I'm happy that being a solopreneur has been an incredible thing. It's allowed me to meet so many different people and it has allowed me to learn so much. It's ushered in my adulthood, I would say. I don't know where I'll be in the next 20 years, but I just hope that I'm providing value and I'm doing good work and that I'm happy. So for now, I can say I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, but you never know what life has for you.