Damilola
Adebonojo

Damilola Adebonojo builds the infrastructure African languages need to survive. Founder, Fulbright alumna, and institution builder, she has spent over a decade creating the platforms, archives, and educational systems that connect African languages to the world. She founded Alámọ̀já Languages in 2018 with no institutional backing, growing it into a fully operational institute teaching Yorùbá, Igbo, and expanding to other African languages, with a team of 20 and learners across continents. She is building YorubaTexts, the most comprehensive digital catalog of Yorùbá-language literature ever assembled — and the foundation of a digital library where every Yorùbá text ever published can be found and reached, regardless of where in the world you are. A Fulbright Foreign Language Teaching Assistant, Future Faculty Fellow, and two-time University of Georgia research grant recipient, her work has been consistently recognised and funded at institutional level. Every project she builds answers the same question: what do African languages need to not just survive, but thrive?