Watch our fundraiser video to meet us, hear our stories, and learn what your support makes possible.
We're raising $20,000 to send 25 early-career AI researchers from Nigeria and Ghana to Deep Learning Indaba 2025, happening this August in Kigali, Rwanda. You can find the full bios for every one of us here, with links to our full profiles.
Your donation helps cover airfare and housing—about $800 per researcher.
Why It Matters
Deep Learning Indaba (website, twitter/X) is the annual meeting of the African machine learning community. Its mission to strengthen and support machine learning and artificial intelligence in across the continent. In 2025, it will be held in Kigali, Rwanda from the 17th to the 22nd of August.
ML Collective (website, twitter/X) is an independent, 501(c)3 non-profit organization with a mission to make research opportunities accessible and free for machine learning researchers of all backgrounds, especially underrepresented, underprivileged, and independent researchers.
Since 2021, MLC has helped dozens of African researchers attend the Deep Learning Indaba—the continent's largest AI gathering—and many have gone on to publish, collaborate, and shape their research in powerful ways.
This year's cohort is no different. They are working on problems that matter, rooted in lived experiences and community need:
- AI for maternal healthcare, sickle cell screening, and rural diagnostics
- Multilingual speech and retrieval for under-represented African languages
- Low-resource medical imaging and disease diagnosis
- Agricultural resilience and aquaculture optimization
- Infrastructure monitoring and crack detection
- Reinforcement learning for cultural preservation
Most of these 25 students are presenting their research for the first time. Many have no institutional support. All are part of MLC-Nigeria – a grassroots-focused local chapter of MLC that started at Deep Learning Indaba 2023 and now supports over ~150 active members across sub-Saharan Africa.
How You Can Help
- Donate any amount; it goes directly to travel support.
- Sponsor a full travel grant ($800).
- Share the campaign with friends, colleagues, or your organization.
Your donation is fully tax-deductible in the US.
ML Collective Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit, Tax-ID/EIN: 85-2682932.