"I absolutely love the brilliant idea that is Hundzula and I can not wait for what it's about to do in breaking down barriers in the field of Linguistics and NLP in South Africa and the world."
"Quite an experience, the way linguists were excited about natural language processing is in itself exciting to computer scientists. This means we can harness our energies through collaboration to solve our common problems of preserving and processing human African language"
"This retreat is exactly what is needing in bridging the gap between pure linguists and NLP/HLT practitioners for it allows for engagement on how we can work together in our disciplines to further develop our languages. It is a great stepping stone towards greater interdisciplinary collaborations. What a great initiative."
"I got to learn a bit of everything from the presentations. I got a bit overwhelmed but knowing I can go over the presentations again, put my mind at ease."
"We need more of these type of research engagements to attain some form of cross-pollination of ideas between Science/Engineering and Humanities research communities. They lightning talks are highly refreshing."
"It was great to have linguists and NLP researchers in the same room to start a dialogue about what we can do together to improve the state of linguistic resources and NLP in South Africa."
"The depth of learning that happens when you put young, brilliant minds together, even for a few days, is unmatched! I loved seeing how the worlds of NLP and linguistics fit together, and having a space to exchange ideas critically but supportively. More than anything, I was energised to continue working in this space as I realised" how many resources and opportunities were already available, even as we hope to add to them in future. Highly recommend!
"The retreat was great. I'm so grateful to have been invited to attend. I met amazing people and learned so much. It was necessary exposure to both aspects of studying text and the retreat brought them together beautifully. I hope it will become an annual thing."