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oscar mulume
oscar mulume

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Mosala: a CV and conversation assistant for Africa's languages, running on your own computer

#agents #ai #nlp #productivity

What I Built

In the DR Congo, where I live, many skilled people have never written a CV. Electricians, phone repairers, mechanics and solar installers learn their trade on the job. Most job offers are written in French or English, while millions of people live their working life in Lingala, Swahili, Kikongo or Tshiluba.

Mosala means "work" in Lingala. It lets someone describe their work the way they would tell a friend, in their own language, and does the slow, boring part for them:

  • Create my CV. You tell your story in Lingala or Swahili, by typing or by voice. Mosala writes a clean CV in French, English, Swahili, Spanish or Portuguese, and turns everyday trade words into the job titles recruiters search for: fundi wa simu becomes "Phone Repair Technician".
  • Understand a job offer. Paste an offer in French or English and Mosala explains it in simple words.
  • Match a CV and an offer. A keyword score, the missing keywords, three tuned bullet points and a draft cover letter.
  • Community messages. Health centres and NGOs write a notice once and get it in the community's languages. The Copy button stays locked until a speaker ticks "Checked by a speaker".
  • Conversation. Two people who share no language talk face to face, on one phone or on two phones in a room.

The language list covers all 54 African countries, with at least three languages for each, about 150 languages in total.

I was born in Goma and worked as a Red Cross volunteer in the DR Congo. I have met many people with real skills, mechanics, phone repairers, electricians, who could not apply for a job because they had no CV, or because the offer was written in a language they do not read well. Mosala is for them.

Demo

Watch on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCEZ6UniWbo

Key moments: 1:36 a story in Lingala is sent, 2:00 the French CV appears, 3:35 a job offer is explained, 4:47 CV and offer are matched, 6:05 a community message is translated into five languages, 6:33 face-to-face conversation, 8:53 voice dictation.

Code

Repository: https://github.com/OscarMulume/nonchalant-cv

To run it: install Ollama, pull a small model such as qwen2.5:3b, then run python app.py and

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