About us

Why SanKam exists.

Language barriers limit trade, add risk and keep traders out of markets across Africa’s borders. SanKam exists so that no deal is lost because two people speak different languages.

Why SanKam was created

Africa trades in thousands of languages. Deals across its borders are spoken, informal, mixed between languages and full of local market terms.

Professional interpreters are too expensive for most traders, and general-purpose AI was never built for how Africa really trades. So prices are misheard, terms are misunderstood and customers are lost at the border.

SanKam was created to close that gap: speech-to-speech interpretation designed for African trade languages and the way people actually do business.

Our story

SanKam was founded by a team with roots in the markets it serves, and backgrounds in entrepreneurship, finance, technology, product, marketing and risk.

We chose to start with a utility-first product that solves a real problem from day one: two traders, one phone, no language barrier. From there, we are building a proprietary African language AI asset that the wider trade ecosystem can build on.

Mission and vision

Our vision

To become Africa’s leading AI language technology company, connecting every African through seamless communication across indigenous languages.

Our mission

To develop AI that enables Africans to communicate, trade, learn and collaborate, whatever their native language.

What we stand for

People first
We design around the real needs, cultures and everyday experiences of African traders. Technology should adapt to people, not the other way around.
Trust in every conversation
Trade depends on understanding. We help buyers and sellers communicate clearly, confirm important details and do business with confidence.
Inclusion across languages
Every language carries identity, knowledge and opportunity. We serve widely spoken and underserved African languages alike.
Local insight
We combine AI with native-speaker knowledge to understand local expressions, market terms and cultural context.
Responsible innovation
We build technology that is transparent, secure and respectful of privacy, and we keep improving its fairness, accuracy and usefulness.

Our journey

  1. 01A product that works from day one

    Speech-to-speech interpretation for traders, on the phones they already carry.

  2. 02Pilots in our first markets

    Launching through local market activation, trader networks, financial institutions and partners.

  3. 03More languages and corridors

    Growing from the twelve languages in our launch plan across more of Africa’s trade routes, each pair opened as it meets our quality bar.

  4. 04Language infrastructure for African trade

    A proprietary African language AI layer that the wider ecosystem can build on.

Our team

Meet the full team

  • Mariama Kamara

    Co-founder and CEO

    Leads SanKam’s vision and strategy, driven by a passion for technology, African innovation and cross-border trade.

  • Alfred Sankoh

    Co-founder and CFO

    Qualified accountant and financial risk and treasury professional, with Head of Finance experience.

  • Dudley Cowan

    Technology Lead

    Leads SanKam’s technology, and is Director and CEO of the UK software house KawanJay Ltd.

  • Sidick Kamara

    Product Lead

    Senior ERP consultant with more than ten years in finance and supply chain transformation.

  • Bundu Bangura

    Operations Lead

    Actuarial science graduate with more than ten years in insurance, catastrophe risk analysis and portfolio management.

  • Foday Daboh

    Marketing Lead

    Leads marketing strategy, brand positioning, market expansion and growth.

  • Shaz Nordin

    Privacy and AI Governance Adviser

    Leads SanKam’s approach to privacy, AI governance, data stewardship and responsible technology.

Advisory board

Specialists in African trade policy, technology, law and marketing who guide SanKam’s work.

  • Professor David Luke

    London School of Economics

  • Afzaal Mauthoor

    Strategist, investor and deep tech adviser

  • Adija Kamara

    Financial lawyer

  • Mary Koomson

    Director of Digital Marketing, RBC Global Asset Management

  • Tomas Andrek

    Software architecture and technical leadership

Read the advisory board’s full profiles

The SanKam ecosystem

Traders and businesses are at the centre. Around them, organisations across African trade can use the same language layer to reach more people.

  • Fintechs and mobile money
  • Logistics companies
  • Marketplaces
  • Trade bodies
  • Financial institutions
  • Development partners
  • Universities and researchers

Partners

  • BFARM Tech
  • Brdge Launchpad

Read the thinking behind SanKam.

Our white paper sets out the problem SanKam is solving, what our proof of concept has shown, and how we plan to build speech-to-speech interpretation for African trade languages: data, models, evaluation, infrastructure and responsible AI.

Download the white paper

PDF, 27 pages, 1.3MB. Public edition, prepared with Brdge Launchpad.

Partner with us.

We work with organisations across the trade ecosystem on pilots and partnerships.

Partner with us

Contact us.

For general and investment enquiries, write to us and the right person will reply.

Contact us