How Ghana’s AI Strategy Can Preserve Cultural Heritage: Spotlight on the Asante Kingdom
The Digital Future Meets Ancient Wisdom
Ghana is stepping boldly into the AI era. With the development of the National AI Strategy (2025–2035), the country is making strategic moves to harness artificial intelligence for inclusive growth, youth empowerment, public sector innovation, and more importantly leveraging strategy for cultural preservation.
Too often, we think of AI only in terms of smart grids, healthcare algorithms, or agricultural tech. But one of its most powerful applications may be in safeguarding what offers us comparative and competitive advantages: our heritage, our languages, our stories.
And there’s no better example to explore this than the Asante Kingdom—a living repository of Ghanaian tradition, identity, and indigenous knowledge.
AI + Culture: A Surprisingly Perfect Match
Artificial Intelligence is a powerful tool for documentation, interpretation, and accessibility. In Ghana’s AI Strategy, Pillar 7 explicitly calls for applied AI research, including the creation of a Natural Language Processing (NLP) Centre of Excellence.
This is a huge opportunity for preserving and promoting Ghana’s intangible heritage—especially languages, oral traditions, and communal wisdom.
With the right implementation, AI can:
● Digitise oral histories in local languages like Asante Twi
● Translate indigenous knowledge systems into formats accessible to younger generations
● Create immersive AR/VR experiences that showcase festivals like Akwasidae
● Preserve artifacts and manuscripts from places like the Manhyia Palace Museum using AI-enhanced archiving
The Asante Kingdom: A Cultural Powerhouse
The Asante Kingdom, founded in the 17th century, is more than history—it’s a living culture. From the symbolic Kente cloth to the powerful Golden Stool, and from complex customary laws to the rhythmic storytelling of drumming, the Asante represent a deep and well-preserved African knowledge system.
Imagine a future where:
● You can ask a chatbot questions in Asante Twi and receive culturally relevant responses
● School children explore Asante mythology through AI-powered storytelling apps
● Legal researchers use semantic AI tools to interpret traditional custoy,mary laws
● Historians collaborate with AI models trained to analyse patterns in oral narratives and folklore
This is not science fiction. It’s within reach—and Ghana’s AI Strategy gives us the roadmap.
Connecting the Dots: AI Strategy Meets Cultural Heritage
Though the strategy doesn’t list “culture” as a key sector, it provides critical enablers that cultural innovators can leverage:
● Pillar 4: Data Access & Governance
Enables ethical digitisation and sharing of indigenous data.
● Pillar 5: Robust AI Ecosystem
Supports collaboration between traditional leaders, AI labs, and universities.
● Pillar 6: Sectoral AI Adoption
Encourages pilots that can showcase AI for heritage conservation.
● Pillar 1: AI Education
Opens doors for youth to engage in cultural tech innovation.
What Could Go Wrong?
As promising as this sounds, we need to proceed with caution:
● Who owns the data? Community involvement is a must. AI projects should not be extracted without consent.
● Is the AI culturally competent? Models trained on foreign data could misrepresent Ghanaian symbols or expressions.
● Can rural areas access it? Infrastructure gaps must be addressed to avoid deepening digital divides.
Ethical AI development, as emphasised in the strategy, is non-negotiable.
What Needs to Happen Next
Here’s how Ghana can turn this vision into reality:
1. Create an AI and Culture Pilot Program
Under the Responsible AI Office, initiatives to document and digitise oral traditions will be launched.
2. Partner with Traditional Institutions
Collaborate with the Manhyia Palace, KNUST, and Ghana NLP to train AI on local languages and culture.
3. Support Youth-Led Cultural Tech Startups
Offer tax incentives and funding to innovators building educational apps, heritage archives, and AR experiences.
4. Embed Cultural Learning in the Curriculum
Use AI to teach Ghanaian history, languages, and values in engaging, tech-forward ways.
Culture is Ghana’s Superpower
AI should not just be about catching up with Silicon Valley. It should be about using tech to amplify Ghana’s identity, empower its youth, and project its cultural voice onto the global stage.
By aligning AI innovation with cultural preservation, Ghana is not only preparing for a digital future—it is rooting that future in the wisdom of its past. The Asante Kingdom shows us what is possible. The AI Strategy shows us how.
Let’s preserve our stories while building our future. That’s the Ghanaian way.
Author Biography
Yaw Adu-Gyamfi is an innovation ecosystem enabler, and an Asante Diplomacy Historian from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology ( KNUST). Yaw is passionate about technology, culture, and inclusive development in Africa. He can be reached via yagyamfi@gmail.com
