Pelonomi Moiloa

Biography

Pelonomi Moiloa is the CEO of Lelapa AI, a socially grounded research and product lab developing language technology for African languages. Under her leadership, Lelapa AI is on a mission to drive measurable improvements in quality of life across the African continent by expanding the capacity of the African digital economy with resource-efficient language AI.

Pelonomi has been recognized as one of TIME’s 100 Most Influential People in AI (2023), a Bloomberg Catalyst (2023), and a recipient of the Mozilla Rise 25 Award (2024). She is also a TED speaker, known for her insights on human centric technology development and small, sustainable language models.

Beyond Lelapa AI, Pelonomi is deeply committed to community empowerment. She serves as a trustee of a girls' scholarship fund and a director of a community-based nonprofit organization. An electrical and biomedical engineer by training, Pelonomi embodies a vision of technology as a tool for transformative social impact.