About Us

The Aikuma Project is coordinated by Steven Bird, advised by Robyn Perry and Manuel Maqueda. Our technical lead is Mat Bettinson.

We focus on "treasure languages", a term proposed by the Rama people of Nicaragua, to refer to the thousands of small languages still spoken in the world today.

Aikuma means "meeting place" in Usarufa, a language of Papua New Guinea. The Usarufa people were the first to trial the original Aikuma app in 2012.

Vision
Our vision is for a world that sustains thousands of living languages.

Mission
To design scalable methods for strengthening the world's treasure languages.

Four Propositions
  1. The society of the future could include thousands of living languages, each spoken alongside a language of wider communication in a situation of stable bilingualism.
  2. Campaigns to "save languages" from outside perpetuate the colonising behaviors and assumptions that led to the world's language crisis.
  3. Small acts of recognition from the dominant culture motivate speakers to keep their languages strong and pass them on to their children.​
  4. We work with immigrant and indigenous communities to create spaces where unique perspectives on human experience and our world are shared and celebrated. We develop technologies so that anyone can engage with our vision for a world that sustains its languages.
The Aikuma Project is fiscally sponsored by the Social Good Fund, a tax-deductible 501c3 nonprofit organization.
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