Welcome to SEACrowd! 👋

We are a community dedicated to bridging the gap between multilingual AI and Southeast Asian AI and enhancing the quality of AI research and researchers in the region.

See what indigenous and non-indigenous languages are under our study.

🚨 Call for contributors! 🚨

Following the success of our SEACrowd project, we’re excited to announce SEA-VL, a new open-source initiative to create high-quality vision-language datasets for Southeast Asian (SEA) languages! Check it out here.

🤔 What’s Next?

🖼️ SEA-VL: Developing Culturally Relevant Vision-Language Models for Southeast Asia

Following the success of our SEACrowd project, we’re excited to announce SEA-VL, a new open-source initiative to create high-quality vision-language datasets specifically for Southeast Asian (SEA) languages! We’re calling on contributors to help us build a SEA-specific vision-language model.

SEA-VL is a big initiative, so we have decided to split it into two phases. In Phase 1 of SEA-VL, we’re looking for self-taken, culturally-relevant images with descriptions about the shared image. This will be cleaned and compiled into a comprehensive open-access SEA-relevant image dataset. This dataset will serve as the foundation for Phase 2, where we’ll develop instruction-tuning VL datasets and build a SEA-specific vision language model (VLM) using the constructed dataset.

Phase 1 is open from 11 Nov 2024 to 15 Feb 2025.

Everyone can join this initiative and become a co-author of SEA-VL. Find out all the details here!

🌏 Special Interest Group in Southeast Asian NLP (SIGSEA)

SIGSEA aims to change that by promoting research, collaboration, and sharing updates on Southeast Asian NLP. This way, in the future, we also can hold our own SEA workshops & events in ACL conferences! 💪

We’re collecting expressions of interest for membership. As a member, you’ll receive regular updates on research, events, and opportunities in the region.

Everyone can join (no need for ACL membership). Sign up today to join SIGSEA via this form! 🫶

🧑‍🎓 SEACrowd Apprentice (Pilot) Program

On-going since 08/2024.

This program targets early-career AI enthusiasts from underserved Southeast Asian communities, who are looking to gain their first substantial research experience. Many face challenges such as limited access to research tools, mentorship, and AI developments.

Our program addresses these gaps by providing research problems for participants to solve in small teams, guided by experienced mentors. Through hands-on projects and learning key concepts, participants work toward writing a publication for top AI conferences like ACL. The program also emphasizes critical thinking, collaboration, and academic writing to prepare participants for success in AI research.

✔️ Past Projects

• 11/2023 to 06/2024. SEACrowd: A Multilingual Multimodal Data Hub and Benchmark Suite for Southeast Asian Languages. Accepted in EMNLP 2024. [Announcement]

News and Updates