About

Unkad is Somali for creation from nothing. It shares a root with unug — the cell, the smallest unit of a living thing. That is how we work: large things assembled from small units, contribution by contribution.

Unkad Labs exists to build the Somali language into the age of artificial intelligence. We create open datasets through community contribution, and we research how to evaluate and align AI systems for Somali and other low-resource languages — work we share with the broader alignment community. We are based in Mogadishu, Somalia.

Unkad Labs is run by a small research team in Mogadishu and the Somali diaspora. A full team page is coming.

We work with universities in Somalia and the diaspora, the Masakhane community, and funders supporting African language AI. Interested institutions → Contact.

Unkad Labs is a registered non-profit organization. All datasets and research are released under open licenses.