Episode Transcript
[00:00:03] Speaker A: Hello.
Welcome to Localization Today where we explore how language, technology and community converge to unlock ideas for everyone everywhere. I'm Eddie Arrieta, CEO here at Multilingual Media.
And today's conversation takes us to one of the fastest evolving regions in the global language industry. Africa is home to extraordinary linguistic diversity, rapidly growing digital economies and increasing demand. Demand for multilingual communication. At the same time, organizations across the continent are navigating questions around AI adoption, workforce development, localization and international collaboration.
Joining us today are two leaders helping shape the future. Johan Botha, director of Folio Online and Folio Intertel and a founder of the association of Language Companies in Africa, or alca.
[00:00:57] Speaker B: He.
[00:00:57] Speaker A: He has spent more than two decades building partnerships across education, workforce development and language technology.
And Ady Namaran Kubali, co founder of Bolingo Consult, co founder also of the African Languages Conference and one of the leading advocates for growing and connecting Africa's language services community.
Johan Adi, welcome to Localization Today. It's great to have you here with us today.
[00:01:27] Speaker C: Thank you very much, Eddie. Happy to be here.
[00:01:29] Speaker A: And of course for our audience, they might not know where you are at. Could you tell us where you are at right now, today?
[00:01:36] Speaker B: Oh, okay. I'm in. Based in Cape Town, actually, but I live in Stellenbosch, which is sort of South Africa's wine region.
But I work in Cape Town. The office, Folio office is in Cape Town.
[00:01:52] Speaker A: All right, Adi, how about you?
[00:01:54] Speaker C: Yeah, so I am currently in Accra, Ghana. Ghana is also known as the gateway to Africa. So that's why I am currently. That's where I'm based permanently.
[00:02:03] Speaker A: And we'll talk more about Ghana in a bit because that's where the conference will be held this year, right?
[00:02:09] Speaker C: Definitely, yeah.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: Wonderful, wonderful. And we're here to talk about. AKA we're here to talk about your report. We're here to talk about the annual event for people outside of Africa who might not be familiar with the organization. Can you tell us little bit more about the role that ALKA plays in strengthening the language industry across the continent? And Johan, maybe you can tell us a little bit about the history. Many people didn't even know there was an association in Africa, but there is some history now. And then we can go with Adi to see how her perspective is helping us understand this.
[00:02:43] Speaker B: Yeah, we sort of, in 2023, towards the end, we decided that there are associations for individuals in the various African languages. Nothing really catering for companies in Africa, localization companies. You have your, your gala and you have your lockworld and, and all of those, and ATA and all of those associations overseas, but nothing really for, for actual language service providers and technology companies in Africa.
And Adi and I and Christian Elong of Cabot came together and decided, listen, it's time that we get together and form something. We see issues that's affecting East Africa and it's being solved and we see the same issues affecting West Africa and Central Africa. No one's talking to one another.
It's just we found that it's time that the industry in Africa speaks to one another. Not just Ghana, speaking to Ghanaian people, trying to sort it out, but speaking to the rest of Africa and finding solutions that works for everyone.
And we are such a close knit community in terms of culture and so on and we find that that's lacking in the language in the localization industry.
So we thought let's get together and change that.
[00:04:26] Speaker A: And adding from your perspective, how do you. How have you experienced it?
[00:04:29] Speaker C: Yeah. So just like Johannes said, the association was established towards the end of 2023 and the goal has been very key as to promote the growth of language services companies on the continent.
And as Johannes said, we've had some, I mean, people operating in silos across the continent. We don't have a lot of associations at the national level for let's say language professionals, for instance. And there's a lot of fragmentation across. And so we felt like having archive was really important.
Other continents have had this kind of association for. I think some have had them there for like 100 years or more if I'm not mistaken. But for us it's the first time that we are actually having something like this. And so for us it's really an important period and a very key organization within the continent.
[00:05:22] Speaker A: And it's very strange because it's language kind of like the, the fabric of communications and the fabric of getting cooperation moving and collaboration moving further. And of course things have changed dramatically in our world because of the Internet, of course, but also because of artificial intelligence. It's not easy to. In many places Africa has its own challenges from the business side and of course, Adi, I know that you are also part of Bolingo and doing business in Africa has its challenges. Those of us that are looking into Africa as a market that could have opportunities. What are some of the things that we are not understanding about the content and what are some of the misconceptions? And we'll get to Johan to see how AKA is helping connect, make those connections even easier for us.
[00:06:15] Speaker C: All right. I think some of the key misconceptions are things that we usually see out there. People thinking that the continent is kind of culturally seeing it as one whole, or I don't know how to put it, but there's this concept that, oh, if you're from Africa, then do you know this person from here or there? And those of us here on the continent actually see the diversity. And that's what you, you spoke about, the language diversity in itself, which is a very important thing.
I think the misconception is that the continent is just one country. Some people think it's still think it's one country, but it's not. It's very diverse.
We have people, different regions and people doing business differently, people buying customers, buying items differently. And so it's really important for us to think about those differences even as we work. And for us in the language services industry, we understand those differences. And that's why when a client even sends some. Some work, would ask the clients, like, for instance, if you want to, if you want a translation in a particular language, we'll ask a client, okay, what country are you targeting? Usually that's the first question that we ask, what country are you targeting? Because the country then would help us know, you know, the particular locale that you want to work with.
And so I think that one of the misconceptions I see is that understanding of the continent and not really getting the grasp of its diversity that we have.
[00:07:41] Speaker A: That is great. And Johan, of course, that fragmentation, it's something that we from the outside fail to understand.
And fragmentation sometimes sounds like conflict, but not necessarily.
It's Alka tapping into this diversity to make sure that, you know, we're tapping into the potential.
[00:08:03] Speaker B: Yeah, I think the main thing that I, or when I work with freelancers, or I've worked with freelancers and companies or for. For many years, then you get a question of a freelancer. And that's one of the things you get a question from a freelancer, what CAT tool or what TMS should I use for this? Because I have this issue. Then I see two months later the same translator from another side of Africa asking exactly the same thing.
So I said to Addie and the others, why don't we bring those two companies together?
They sought out their cattle issues. That's the best for them.
Increase the value for both companies and expand the association, expand the African continent, the industry, to make better business sense for all of them.
And I think that one of the main things, as Adi said, and I just want to something that I Mentioned to someone the other day is people don't understand just how big Africa is and perhaps the listeners and yourself and so on. There's a cool website that I found the other day.
It's called the truth, the truesize.com thetruesize.com and it's a map that you can actually drag countries around and continents around and you can place it over other continent, other countries.
And that way you can just see just how humongous Africa is, the actual size of it. So people think Africa is this, as Adi said, this one thing. But we've got many countries, 2,000 languages, and the main thing is if a client comes to us and says, what should I do with Africa?
Then most people don't know my mother tongue is Afrikaans, which is a language of South Africa, but it's often misunderstood as African, which is the language of Africa, which obviously it isn't.
So I think in Alka, the association or the value that companies can get is you have a voice that can now speak to you. You can come to your. You have this business case, you don't know what to do, come to Alka. And I can, we can say, the company can say, let's let me put you in touch with that. That person and that person. Or there might be another association internationally that can solve things. We can direct people to multilingual for some information.
But I think that the importance here is also for not just associations to connect one another, but also to have an advocate that can speak to the organizations. It's you I've used that example is if you go to the European Union, as Edi Aretia's little business in the central part of Africa, they might not listen. But if it's a continental association that goes to the European Union or the African Union or so on, they generally listen.
And that's the way to get your foot in the door on the actual things that influence your life. You get your proverbial seat at the table.
[00:11:52] Speaker A: And of course, associations thrive because of their membership. That's how they work. Some associations are primarily focused on individual members, on freelancers, we could say on translators.
Some others are focused on the companies themselves.
For you, of course, you have individual members, you have companies, you have technology companies.
What are the benefits of the membership? And perhaps you tell us a little bit more about what is it like to be a member of aka. What do I get from being a member of aalca?
[00:12:32] Speaker C: So I think first of all, the first benefit of AKA is in networking.
It would surprise you to Learn that prior to AKA coming into existence, we've had only one conference, one major conference for the language industry in Africa. And that has been the conference organized by the East Africa association of Translators and Interpreters. It's called iata, right. And they've organized the conference, I think, for five years, and I attended it three years in a row. And it's been a great conference.
However, I think we don't have enough organizing on the continent. And so having just one conference that brings together language professionals and companies to me is not sufficient. And so AKA has come in to kind of boost that space and enhance networking. And so we've organized the ARCA annual conference since 2024 and last year and now this year. And so it's really contributing enormously to the continent.
Besides that, also we provide benefits that ADAS associations usually provide in terms of discounts to partner events.
We have one of our partners is gala, for instance, and so when they have events, we give discount to our members to attend. We also have a newsletter which we share as a resource as well. We also have learning resources. So for instance, we have a partnership with NIMSE, where our members can take part in the NIMSI courses that are available.
Besides that, we also organize webinars. And one of the resources also is the AKA research report, which we recently published. And so I think the benefits are enormous. And for me, the most important one is what it does, is the visibility that it provides to LSPs on the continent. Because sometimes when you're working alone on in silos, it's difficult to influence policy.
But being an association, we are able to say to a particular government, to specific entities, that here is what we've observed in the industry and here is what we think can change things and improve the language landscape on the continent. So maybe Johan wants to add something to what I've said.
[00:14:34] Speaker B: I don't just think, it's just you mentioned that in one of the other talks a while ago, and I know Renato is also big on that. The value generally that you get from an association is very much up to yourself.
So if you engage with the members and you attend a conference or, and I mean that's one of the other things is some associations are only their conference, but we try to be a full year value with learning series.
We can have webinars on learning new tools, we have our newsletter, we have our website, we have our social media where people can get information.
But it's very important, I think, for an association to perhaps asking, what is it in it, for me, is perhaps not always the correct way to approach is, how can I, as a lsp, how can I use this association for my benefit?
I am going to say I am a member of an association. It immediately gives you legitimacy in your business.
And I can say we're actually looking at.
Because ISO certification is quite difficult to get for various reasons in Africa.
So we're looking at things like certification, having an Alcast certification that you can. A quality certification for translations.
That's cognizant of the unique challenges that there are in Africa.
For example, if ISO certification says you have to have a university degree, but in your country there are no universities that give translation courses, it's a bit difficult.
Or if you're a very small language and you need to provide proof of having translated 300,000 words, but your language is so small that you translate 10 languages every 10 years, it's very difficult to get your certification. So we're looking very closely at making an association that works for Africa instead of just following what other associations are doing.
[00:17:24] Speaker A: And these are very particular challenges. And of course, the way in which you approach the potential members, the way in which the members interact, I'm assuming, is in English. And I'm bringing it up because, of course, we've joined Vamos Juntos in Latin America. And for Latin America, despite the fact that we have also several languages, not as many as in Africa. We default into English just for practical reasons.
And of course, the challenges in Africa are steeper.
Do you think that there might be some resistance because English is the language that's being used, or do you think that companies and members are understanding that for practical reasons, this is the way to go to make sure that we have a common language to collaborate.
[00:18:12] Speaker B: It is a challenge in the sense of people do want to use their own language. Africa, West Africa is still, even with its diverse languages and cultures, it's still a Francophane region.
And French is the lingua franca of a large part of that. So it's, I think, challenging for all associations to be multilingual.
But of course, I know Addie, you can actually speak to it. She was involved with the African Languages conference where they had interpreting for all of the speakers. And that was a challenge.
She can mention how they did that, but I think it's generally understood that English is the quickest way to communicate, perhaps in a way, vast linguistic culture as Africa.
But it's certainly not something that we take for granted.
We have members in East Africa, we have members in West Africa. So if we have a discussion that we need to have in a language that the company prefers, we can certainly arrange that we have enough resources between everyone to find that help. But I don't think that's a unique challenge to Alka. It's a challenge, as you mentioned, with Juntos as well.
What do you use?
Because you will inevitably, whatever you do, you might exclude people.
And that's specifically not what you do want to do. But you also want to respect the cultures and not just say, listen, we're going to do English, it's going to be fine, everyone's going to be happy with it.
I think knowing the challenge is already a step in the right direction.
[00:20:24] Speaker A: I agree.
Having the consciousness around that puts us in the right direction.
Adi, of course, Allcam, it's a place for collaboration. It's a place where activities happen.
You are going to have an event. But you also had a report that was recently released, the 2026 Industry Report for companies, for those in the sector, in the language sector in Africa, how important it is to receive something like this to have the ability to get insights on the continent around language.
[00:21:01] Speaker C: I think it's key because first of all, a lot of research has been done previously, but it's not been done necessarily by people within the continent. We've had studies been done by companies outside. And so we felt like it was important for us to reach out to companies in the continent, on the continent, and also professionals to have a report that kind of gives us an overview of where the industry is at a particular time and what are the trends, what are the challenges that we can look at. And then of course for AKA this data is meant to help us do more for our members, help us also to come up with programs and activities that are better suited to the needs of, of our people, the people that we work with.
And so it's information that definitely will guide us in the coming year as we carry out our programs and activities. And it's been very essential for actually in our programming as well. Just to. I also want to speak briefly on the previous question about the. The languages. And so I think it's exactly. I would see that as a bit of a shortcoming on our side because some, some most often we're leaving out some communities like the Portuguese speaking and Spanish speaking communities on the.
When we focus only on English and sometimes French speakers also would feel like they want information in their own languages. And so maybe in the future we'll think about something having our resources in Portuguese and in French as well. Besides English.
Thank you.
[00:22:27] Speaker A: Yeah, it'd be interesting to see the reports. And we've had the same challenge with multilingual. I have to be completely fair out there. And many people have said, well, you know, you're multilingual, yet you are not multilingual. And it's for practical reasons. And because we are in the language industry, it seems that whenever we make a decision around language, we have to be responsible. We cannot just say, oh, just put it on Google Translate, or just use a large language model and just put it out there. Actually, there are some specific nuances and probably you want to get native speakers involved, you want to get culturalizers involved in the conversations to make sure that each report for each language has specific elements that cater to those languages. And maybe we are overthinking it here. Multilingual. But with that said, Johan, coming up with these reports, it's particularly challenging and you have to get many people involved who was involved in the production of these reports. How did it come about?
[00:23:34] Speaker B: The main thing for the report was perhaps not so much for the others.
For myself, it was generally just irritation. You get all of these big reports, the Nimdzi and the Common Sense Advisory, the CSA report and the X report and the Y report, and then you get either sort of a little piece of Africa or the report does not have a whole continent in the report at all.
So I thought, listen, let's not wait anymore. We've been sort of waiting a long time. Let's just do ourselves. Let's just do it ourselves. So there were a few people involved that to, to get the. The main thing, I think, was just to get a good representative sample of people who are in the industry.
And precisely because something like this report has never been done, people were sort of perhaps skeptical about why do they need to answer all of these questions, give things like their income and give things like what are they doing and so on. Perhaps a little bit of distrust. So Adi and Christiane and Lady Umi from Botswana, she was involved as well.
They, they, they answered a multitude of, of questions tailored for Africa.
So I think the, the main thing now with this report is it brings legitimacy. But to what we are saying, we can say now, we can advocate for Africa and for this issue because we have the data to back it up. It's not like we're not relying on an international report that might have been done by or answered by 4 people who are sitting at South Africa or Kenya or so on and they don't know it.
But now we can Go to whoever and have advocate for that issue or a specific issue.
And the thing is also it's difficult to know what the problems are if you don't have the data to back it up.
Now we can say and I think an interesting thing that came about in the light of AI is just how much AI is already being used in Africa.
And there's something that I find fascinating is in Europe and in America there might be this fear of AI taking over.
Whereas AI is I think approached in a completely different way. Well, we can see it in the report as well.
Is approached in a different way way. It's seen as an opportunity.
I have this technology that is putting something very important in my back pocket. I have a chatgpt or so on app in my back pocket that can have a classroom that can give me information about an issue. I don't know what is the best cat tool to use. I don't know what is, what is a. How can I use a word version? There's a problem with that. Previously you had issues, you need to contact a service provider or a technical assistance for that. Now you have it in your, in your back pocket.
And Africans see that as an opportunity for growth to skip ahead of the markets. You have challenges like infrastructure. So let's see if we can use that small technology for the African association, use that technology for the betterment of the continent and overcome those challenges.
[00:28:07] Speaker A: Absolutely. Johan. There is definitely a precedent from African nations to using new technologies to leapfrog challenges, the adoption of electronic coins or financial resources, being able to transact over the phone, adopting mobile phones, Internet at a much rapid pace than other places of the world. Adi, for you, for, you know, the companies that you represent, of course, what are some of the insights that you saw in the report that you think are telling similar to how Johan has mentioned?
[00:28:40] Speaker C: Yeah, so one of the key insights for me was the formalization or the way in which businesses are currently structured.
So you have businesses that have kind of one or two key people acting as the. I mean of course who are the founders and who are basically the business. They are the founder, but they're also the business themselves.
And so we see that the structuring itself has some issues. And so you see that there is a. For some businesses, for instance, they don't even have a website.
On the other hand, also one interesting thing is that even those that don't have a website have been able to build long term relationships with their clients. And so with or without those websites, you would see them getting contract and you will see them working. And so that has led to people, you know, being kind of complacent or being happy with the, the state at which they find themselves in terms of professionalization of the businesses or formalization.
I think that's where AKA comes in. Because one of our requirements to join AKA for instance, is to have to be registered officially. And so sometimes when people reach out to us and they say, oh, I want to be a member, we, we ask them for their registration document. And for those that don't have it, I'm sure it's going to be a kind of wakeup call for them as well. And so for me, one highlight was, was that fact, I mean, of, you know, the current level of businesses and the fact that we don't have significant structuring. And that also means that when it comes to data, most of us are then reluctant to share data on income because sometimes the data on income is not, I mean, the finances is not really well recorded, let me say. Or maybe their funds are not reinvested back into the business. And so that makes it difficult to say, okay, this is our revenue for this year, and so on and so forth. And so I think that formalization will have to be one of the things that Akka works towards and you know, encourages companies to do that on the continent.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: That is wonderful to hear. And I assume that this is going to be the types of conversations that are going to happen this year at the conference. The Alka Annual Conference 2026 is approaching. What can you tell us about it, Johan, and the numbers of attendees, sponsors, what's going on and what can we expect this year?
[00:30:45] Speaker B: It is the second in person we had in 2024 we had a virtual conference that was very well attended. And then we decided last year it was in Cape Town, which we had about 50 people attend just to, just to get it nice, small and close knit. I always, to be honest, I prefer a smaller conference. You get much more value for getting. Instead of having two minutes to speak to everyone, you can now have a full 30 minute conversation and get into the thick of things.
So this year we have some sponsorships from RWAs, it's sponsored, translated, had some sponsorships, the African Languages Lab that's also going to participate. And we again, I had conversations with a variety of people, including the people from famous Juntos.
So our first aim is to again get that minimum of 50 people and then next year work towards 100 people and so on and so on. But it is difficult, especially for Africa with its Flights are expensive now with the rising fuel. Flights are expensive. It's expensive.
Sometimes people, a company might choose one conference to go to and they think that something like Gala or lockworld might be the only conference for them to go to because they might not know there's something much closer to their backyard.
So it's always, it's a challenge to get people to realize that there are options out there for them.
So for us continually it's just advocating and marketing and so on. So to let people know, as Ali said, LinkedIn for example, is very important for association. But in Africa, Facebook might be a much better way to go. Or you have, because people are on their mobile phones the whole time. WhatsApp might be an important marketing tool.
So it's just we have to having to continuously adapt to know what is going on, where people are, what do they need.
But a conference, I think, and that's internationally the case. Conferences are generally a challenge to get it and get people there, but I think it's important to work towards that. There's just having a virtual conference and having an in person conference. There's just no comparison.
If you have a drink afterwards and you talk about your issues and your problems and you open with it and you solve it right there and then you build friendships and you build trust, it's just different.
So we aim to have an in person conference. If it's a small one, that's fine. We get the value of that. Absolutely.
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Adi, and from your perspective, you have experienced it. How good is it doing?
What's the good that you're receiving, that you're seeing others receive from the conference?
[00:34:31] Speaker C: Yeah, I think mostly for us is meeting new people, people from outside the continent coming in also and engaging with us and being excited about what we do here, learning new ways of working and collaborating. And for one of the conferences, even my company had for instance, a client that we still work with to this day. And so these conferences are really important. They help us to build the connections, they help us to interact, to understand each other's problems and challenges. And so definitely for me, I've always derived a lot of value from conferences. And that's why I mentioned earlier that I had taken part in the IATA conference for three consecutive times. And so yeah, it's always an amazing space to engage and to collaborate.
[00:35:12] Speaker A: And of course, we're almost coming to an end of our conversation. All this work is building on the future. These are the stepping stones. These are the foundations of where you want to see the language industry evolve. Not Only for Africa. Africa being one of the main elements that it's going to take the global industry forward. Johan Adi, how do you envision our industry and of course the African continent within the next five, 10 years? What do you think the Alka is going to provide to this environment?
[00:35:47] Speaker B: I think in the AI time to say looking ahead is always. Sometimes you say, I don't want to look ahead more than two days in, in the way that AI is moving. But I think the main thing is that I want to see people say Africa is a growing continent. It is a growing continent. It's one of the youngest continents.
Median age.
Lots of people are entering the business sector now. They're getting jobs, they're young sectors like gaming is booming because you have the young population.
So I think it's just formalizing, structuring. As Adi mentioned, having companies structure themselves to make it attractive for outside investment to be there. It's very difficult for a company, let's say US, big US company to say I want to partner with an association. But that association isn't formally structured. It doesn't have a website or doesn't have documentation that can lay out your full process and your quality assurance processes and the privacy laws and all of that. So I think one of the biggest things for us is to help associations, help organizations and companies to be better versions of themselves by learning from one another.
I think it's important to say to the rest of the world, listen, we are already building language models. We're building out small language models. I think Africa, Europe just came out now with their first LLM and we sort of said to ourselves, now only Europe. What's going on? Why are you so slow?
So we've been doing our little small language models for quite a while now because we have to stay ahead.
We have to. You mentioned the leapfrog. I like that word. I've been a proponent of that as well. Let's see what's working for us instead of trying to adopt something that was not built for us.
[00:38:23] Speaker A: Wonderful. Adi, I don't know if you have anything to mention, but this would be the time to connect with our audience and then mention anything we might be missing. Of course, we'd like to know where we can get more information if we want to sign up for the conference, if we want to learn more about the work that you are all doing.
[00:38:39] Speaker C: Yeah. So for me, I think five to ten years from now, how amazing would it be to have five companies listed on the Nimzi 100, like five African countries, companies Right, that would be great. I mean, that would have shown that, okay, the industry has grown, companies have formalized and we have more data on the continent. So that would be great. And like Johan said, we need more technology initiatives on the continent because we've seen that technology now plays a key role in terms of the increasing revenue of the big companies out there. And so it'll be great to see some African LSPs also venturing into that particular area and making strides as well.
[00:39:11] Speaker A: That is fantastic.
[00:39:12] Speaker B: Yes, Johan and I, I think just if, if people want to register, follow our LinkedIn page.
There's all of the information.
Go to our website, alka-affociation.org or just get in touch with myself or Addie or one of the other board members, arrange a meeting time just to chat. We're always welcome to teach people about Africa or if it's an association, let's see how we can help you be a better version of yourself.
And it's just engage.
That's the first step of any company that wants to join association is just to reach out. You've got nothing to lose.
[00:40:09] Speaker A: Fantastic. And I really loved what you mentioned. It's not what you're going to get from the association is what can you bring to the association and how can you come in with that productivity to work together. So thank you, Johan, thank you, Adi, for your insights for everything you've shared today.
[00:40:26] Speaker B: Thank you, Eddie, for having us.
[00:40:27] Speaker C: Thank you.
[00:40:28] Speaker A: That is fantastic.
Thank you everyone who has been listening to localization today on this amazing conversation. Once again, a big thank you to Johan Botha and Adi Namaran Kubali for joining us and sharing insights from the Alka 2026 industry report, as well as their perspective on the opportunities shaping the future of Africa's language industry. To learn more about Alka 2026 industry report and the annual ALCA conference membership opportunities, be sure to visit Alka's website like Johan mentioned or go to the website or follow the links in the description that we will share on this recording. Catch new episodes of Localization today on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and YouTube. Subscribe, rate and share so others can discover the show. I'm Eddie Arrieta with Multilingual Media. Thanks for listening and see you next time. Goodbye.
