A 14-year-old Burkinabè developer, Chérif Kounta, has launched FasoNova, an artificial-intelligence assistant he says is designed around the educational, commercial and cultural realities of Burkina Faso and wider Africa.
Kounta, founder of the technology venture Alpha IA, began developing FasoNova at 13. He says the platform is intended to do more than answer questions: its “mission mode” accompanies users through a task from start to finish.
For example, he said, a person with one million CFA francs who wants to open a telecommunications shop could receive an estimated timeline, cost breakdown, list of products to purchase and suggested suppliers. For students, the tool is designed to explain the method for solving an exercise before reviewing the pupil’s attempt and identifying errors.
The name FasoNova combines “Faso,” a term for the homeland, and “Nova,” meaning new. Kounta said the idea was inspired by President Ibrahim Traoré’s call for faster progress across all sectors, adding that the platform represents “a new Faso, a new technology.”
He said FasoNova was trained and refined using publicly available resources, with attention to national languages, local culture and everyday Burkinabè usage. He positions it as an alternative to global AI systems that may not adequately reflect African contexts.
Privacy is central to the project’s pitch. Kounta said user information is encrypted and hosted on private cloud servers, is not sold, is not used to train other AI models, and cannot be accessed by his team. These assurances have not yet been independently verified.
FasoNova is currently accessible through its website, fasonova.vercel.app, rather than through Google Play. Kounta said he plans to release a mobile version and later extend the platform to health services and public administration.
The teenager said his parents initially worried about the time he spent on screens, but now support the project and funded his training and equipment. He said he built the application without external financing, working about two hours daily during the school term and four hours each Saturday afternoon.
Kounta is seeking financial support and partnerships with research centres, universities and developers to expand FasoNova’s databases and improve the product.
