Lost in Translation

Hey, Sheriff here 👋 

Have you ever wondered why your grandma doesn’t care what app you use?

There’s a good reason why. And in this week’s edition, we’re digging into it.

But before we start, we have something to say…

Now, on to this week’s story….

Africa is the most linguistically diverse continent on Earth.

The continent has over 2,000 languages.

Nigeria has more than 500. Kenya has 68.

And South Africa has 12 official languages.

When it comes to tech, though, things look different.

Most tech products in Africa speak English and code.

But the people mostly don’t. 

So while the continent is moving towards tech, a big part is left behind for several reasons.

One of them is language.

You’re worried about digital literacy?

Let’s start with literal literacy.

Before users can type an email or fill out a form, they need to be able to read.

Mostly in English, French, or the official (read: easiest) language.

But if you’re building tech in Africa, literacy isn’t easy to come by:

• 38% of adults in Nigeria can’t read or write English.

• In Ethiopia, it’s 48%

• And 17 countries in Africa still have literacy rates below 50%.

Now, think of the average startup you know.

They have a text-based app. Customers/Users can only do KYC in English. And it involves using an email.

Most of these are tough for people who can’t read English.

So when startups launch in Africa, a big cohort of people simply can’t use their products.

Not because they don’t want to, but because of language.

Telcos like MTN had to do customer service in multiple local languages to serve customers right.

And this shows up even outside of tech. Like in media.

In Lagos, you can build a newsletter to 53,000 subscribers (Tech Safari says hi).

But at some point, you risk hitting a ceiling.

On the other hand, the local radio station might have over a million listeners while broadcasting in a local language.

You can sell services, reach customers, and even grow businesses through this channel.

But with tech in Africa, growth is often a hard-fought battle. And literacy is a big factor.

On the other hand…

Low-tech is still king 

Seeing how most apps struggle to take off massively in Africa, it’s interesting to see what actually does.

Most times, it’s low tech products that aren’t up against literacy barriers.

Over 50 million people in Africa transact on M-PESA each day.

And 75% of South Africans listen to the radio each week.

Both of these have one thing in common: they’re low-tech.

Mobile money (like M-PESA) runs on USSD and mobile numbers.

And radio technology is over 100 years old.

Yet, these are the most popular channels for Africans to transact and keep up with the times.

Because they don’t have a high literacy barrier.

USSD only requires a few shortcodes.

And radio can speak to you in your local language.

It’s not that being low-tech is always better, but in Africa, it has one clear advantage: it’s more accessible.

But India did it first

Africa’s not the first continent to hit the language wall. 

India brought 500 million people online — not by forcing them to learn English, but by building platforms that spoke their language.

One standout? ShareChat.

ShareChat is a social media platform built for the 90% of Indians who prefer their local language over English.

It supports 15+ Indian languages like Hindi, Telugu, Marathi, Bengali, and Tamil.

But it didn’t stop at translation.

It built culture-first, voice-enabled, meme-powered communities in each language.

People share jokes, debates, and local news—all in their mother tongue.

And that unlocked a wave of content creators from rural towns and Tier 3 cities who had been invisible on English-first platforms like Twitter or Instagram.

Today, ShareChat has over 350 million users.

And its short video spinoff, Moj, was India’s fastest-growing TikTok alternative.

ShareChat proved one thing clearly: Vernacular is viral.

When you build for people in the language they think and joke in, adoption explodes. 

And we’re seeing that happen in Africa.

Don’t text me, talk 

In Nigeria, a doctor shares health tips on social media in Pidgin English. 

He uses the same slang and humour you’d hear at a bus stop.

His name is Aproko Doctor. 

He started out making simple videos with quips anyone could understand. 

And he’d break down chronic diseases into ideas people understood.

In eight years, his audience has grown to 5.7 million people across social media.

And his videos reach over a million people each week.

On the flip side, many healthtech apps in Nigeria have risen and fallen, without getting anywhere near that number. 

Aproko Dr’s content met a need for better healthcare information. 

But where others have tried with shiny apps and AI diagnostics, he won by simply being easy to understand.

There’s a lesson in there, which is that accessibility is a big growth hack in Africa.

But while it goes beyond just language, language is one of the easiest ways to be accessible.

These startups are getting it right

Some African startups are already building for voice (and language), not vision:

Like Intron Health.

Intron built a voice-to-text AI tool that understands over 200 African accents. 

And they use it to help African doctors document 40% faster, saving them up to four hours of typing a day.

When doctors talk in their language or accent, it is quickly transcribed into English using Intron’s AI.

And today, Intron is in use in hospitals across Africa.

Then there’s Pindo.

It lets businesses handle customer service calls in local languages like Swahili and Luganda.

So a woman in rural Rwanda can get onboarded to an app in her native language.

There’s also Viamo.

A voice-based platform that delivers vital information — crop prices, health tips, weather updates, and more — via simple phone calls.

And it does it in local languages.

During COVID, it was used to share health tips to locals in Madagascar, a country 1.5 times the size of Germany, with a sparse internet connection.

Today, Viamo serves millions of users across 20+ African countries.

These are the kinds of products betting on accessibility and local understanding.

And we think they’re well placed to win, because…

Accessibility is a growth hack

Designing for accessibility isn’t just ethical.

It’s smart business.

Africa will add 100 million new internet users by 2025.

Most will be:

• First-time smartphone users

• Sparse English speakers

• Not fluent readers

Startups that build for them won’t compete for the same 5% of elite users.

They’ll be unlocking blue oceans.

Accessibility isn’t a feature.

It’s the foundation for growth on a continent that’s just too diverse for a handful of languages.

Do you know any other accessibility-first products in Africa? 

Let me know here

That’s it for this week. See you on Sunday for a breakdown on This Week in African Tech.

Cheers,

The Tech Safari Team

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