🎥 Session recording: https://youtu.be/ojbuIcX6LVg?list=PLhV3K_DS5YfIr2HbYikIz4XMBXKTGytWY&t=21863 🎥

Linguistic diversity is at risk, with many of the world’s 7,000 languages facing extinction, particularly among displaced populations in sub-Saharan Africa. Forced migration, loss of ancestral lands, and shifting aid policies threaten cultural continuity. This presentation explores how open-source, offline technologies like Internet-in-a-Box (IIAB) can empower refugee communities to document and preserve their languages. Nowhere is this more true than in Minawao, a UNHCR refugee camp in Cameroon, home to 80,000 people from linguistically diverse backgrounds. In February 2024, we launched “Minawao Youth – Our Cultures for Our Future,” training 30 volunteers to create community-driven, evolving, offline language archives using IIAB. IIAB enables local knowledge preservation despite digital barriers, and we highlight its role in safeguarding endangered languages and advocate for integrating refugee-led initiatives into global knowledge-sharing networks.