Tech in Yoruba, Year One of Idán
Last year I made a video explaining AI in Yoruba and it went everywhere—I guess the right word is viral. It wasn't some long thought out strategy. It was me sharing snippets of technology in one of the languages that I speak well.
It went well. I've gone ahead to make about 28 more videos covering fundamentals of tech concepts, more than half of them are related to data science and artificial intelligence because that's what I do. But the cool thing is that when you search these concepts online and include Yoruba in your search terms and keywords, something relatable comes up and it's super cool that I get to share my work with people that way.
(An Idán thing; Idán means magical, a slang for super cool stuff)
The Work Behind Each Video
I went for a concert and someone asked if I was the Olùkó (Teacher) from LinkedIn. It was hilarious because it wasn't bright and no one was supposed to recognize me offline😁.
I do take my work as a teacher seriously. They're typically short videos but the work that goes into each video is designed to take learners on a journey from the familiar to the unfamiliar. This means thinking through relatable context, breaking down the technical so the community of learners are not confused or consider tech things impossible to learn.
Viral Moments
It's too much work to calculate the exact numbers across platforms but when I shared this video explaining chatGPT in Yoruba on LinkedIn, it had up to 1000 hours watch time within a week. It was interesting to see because it's only 4 and a half minutes long.
Production Challenges and Growth
I still think videos are stressful. I decided to try an external webcam and I ended up with an interesting topic in facial detection and recognition in Yoruba but a poor quality video 🤣
Bankole helped make a series of studio quality videos. I mean this video about voice assistants in Yoruba is lit lit. Maybe I will finally set up a tiny home studio. And nope, I am not learning video editing—it's too much work. Splitting frames to add subtitles is stressful enough, setting up lights is 'stressful' and figuring out frames, angles and colors is 'stressfulll'.
Moving Forward
I understand that the recent content, especially the AI for Everyone series, are more technical (yes my mum said it) but a core part of my work is in AI, so there will be more. Still come for classes 😁
I am grateful for you. You're part of why my work comes to life and I don't take it for granted.
Oh, this is where I am supposed to share my plans for the future… ermmm, whenever she can, Idán will make great videos and you'll love it!!!!