Welcoming our new AI+Africa Lead for the NLP-CoP: Vari Matimba

Our team is growing! We’re thrilled to welcome Varaidzo Matimba to the role of AI+Africa Lead for the Natural Language Processing Community of Practice (NLP-CoP), thanks to The Hewlett Foundation and its support for our AI+African MERL Working Group. With Vari on the team, we’ll be able to offer dedicated focus to this key Working Group and the interests of its members.

Getting to know Vari 

Vari (she/her) is a pan-African feminist lawyer, decolonial funding advocate, and curator of the inaugural Afrofeminist Data Museum. She holds an Executive Postgraduate Diploma in Development Policies and Practices from the Geneva Graduate Institute. Her work focuses on human rights program design at the intersection of feminist tech policy, data governance, and digital inclusion in Africa. She has supported movement building, strategy, governance, compliance, and resource mobilisation across West, Southern, and Eastern Africa. Vari has served on boards including the World YWCA, British Council, and UN Women. She currently sits on the boards of Art+Feminism and GRIT. 

Our AI+African MERL Working Group focuses on conversations and practical learning about AI and NLP for MERL in African contexts and “Made in Africa” AI and NLP tools. It creates space for connection and cross-learning with other NLP/AI and Evaluation groups and networks in and outside Africa. As a creative movement builder, Vari has led and coordinated communities of practice in East and West Africa on data governance, AI and digital safety. She’s bringing those experiences to the AI+Africa Lead for the NLP-CoP role, where she will focus on creating space, structure and momentum for working group members to collaborate, learn together and connect with each other (and with other networks working on AI development and governance in Africa). 

Combining her previous experiences researching AI governance and policymaking, her interest in decolonial approaches to AI, along with her expertise in training and capacity strengthening, Vari is looking forward to curating knowledge from a variety of sectors and sharing it with community members: 

“I’m looking forward to trendspotting and bringing those insights into the CoP – via trainings and more. I hope to strengthen the community’s engagement with decolonial approaches to AI and MERL by facilitating cross-sector learning and creating spaces for meaningful conversation.”

Our team is incredibly excited to have Vari join the NLP-CoP and is looking forward to the next steps for the AI+African MERL Working Group!

Get involved!

If you’re interested in getting involved with the NLP-CoP,  join us! We are a community of over 1100 development and humanitarian practitioners working at the intersection of AI, digital development, and MERL.