From DTU Initiative to Denmark's Largest Technology Expo

UmkhoAI, a South African software company, is taking part in Digital Tech Summit in Denmark, the event that began as a DTU initiative and has grown into the country's largest technology expo. The company builds AI models that run without an internet connection and can communicate in African languages.

Founder and CEO Botshelo Baloyi, who is 22, says the aim is to show that AI can work where the internet does not. In his words, millions of people in Africa live without reliable internet access, and AI as it exists today leaves them behind.

The summit gives UmkhoAI more than a stage for its technology. According to Baloyi, meeting suppliers in Denmark has shown that the company may be able to cut the cost of the server infrastructure it needs by roughly EUR 100,000.

The event itself has a longer history. DTU first held it in 2017 under the name High Tech Summit, with the ambition of bringing research and industry closer together. Even then, artificial intelligence topped the list of digital technologies expected to have the greatest impact.

The story shows the summit working as a practical meeting point. A young African startup working on offline, local-language AI has come into contact with Danish suppliers who could lower a major infrastructure cost, while the event continues the research-industry link it was founded to create.