Lowering barriers in participatory research for machine learning and health across Africa

Our Mission

SisonkeBiotik is an open and inclusive community of researchers, practitioners and enthusiasts at the intersection of Machine Learning and Healthcare working together to build capacity and drive forward grassroots research initiatives in Africa for Machine Learning and Healthcare.

The tragic past of colonialism has been devastating for Africa. This has resulted in a technological space that does not understand our names, our cultures, our places, our history.

SisonkeBiotik roughly translates to “together Biotik” in isiZulu. Sisonke means “together” and Biotik is a play on Biotic “Life” (both in terms of healthcare and people) and BioTech “biological technology”

Our goal is for Africans to shape and own these technological advances towards human dignity, well-being and equity, through inclusive community building, open participatory research and multidisciplinarity.

All of our ongoing open events, including regularly occurring and one-off ones, can be found at the following "SisonkeBiotik Events Calendar". We recommend subscribing to our calendar via Google Calendar or iCal.  

 Our Values

Goals

How can I contribute?

INITIATIVES + PROJECTS

Contribute to an initiative by starting or joining a project  

Check out our current and past initiatives and projects

GENERALLY 

Partner Communities & Organisations 

Masakhane

FruitPunch AI

Wits Healthcare Innovation

Data Engineering and Semantics Research Unit

IndabaX South Africa

RAIL Lab

Support from 

Vitruvian Medical Diagnostics

Cassyni

SisonkeBiotik is a fork of the Masakahne research community model - find their repository here and fork your own community today =D 

or fork the SisonkeBiotik community repository here