Inside Saïd: The Oxford dictionary that changed her life

“Sometimes I still have to pinch myself that I’m here.”

For some students I meet, it’s not just the scale of their ambition I’m impressed with, but the distance they’ve already travelled to reach it.

Anna Mae Yu Lamentillo is a Karay-a woman from West Visayas in the Philippines. Growing up, she learned early that some voices are heard more readily than others.

“I was taught in English, but words - especially those with the letter ‘s’ - made me stumble. I was mocked for my accent and my stutter.”

At home, however, things felt different. “My mother would whisper proverbs in Kinaray-a when I struggled. My mouth would loosen around familiar sounds – ours.”

Slowly, stubbornly, she improved. “I learned to measure progress not in perfect consonants, but in courage: one breath, one word, one more try.”

Years later, when she finally spoke English without stuttering, it felt like a door opening. Not just to opportunity, but to choice.

“Education gave me my voice, and it left me with a conviction: leaders who keep learning make better decisions for

organisations and for countries.”

Anna Mae became the youngest Undersecretary at the Philippine Department of Information and Communications Technology. She was the first in her family to enter politics, working at the intersection of public service, technology and inclusion.

But her childhood experiences never left her. “My childhood struggle taught me that language is not fair. Some languages are treated as ‘default’: supported everywhere, understood instantly. Others are unseen.”

Then came the moment that changed everything. “I tried speaking Kinaray-a to a chatbot… and it did not respond.”

She pauses as she recalls her reaction. “That silence was more than a technical limitation. It was a warning.”

For Anna Mae, the implications were impossible to ignore. If we keep building systems that only listen to the majority, entire communities will be pushed further to the margins of the digital age.

So, in 2023, she founded The NightOwlAI, an organisation focused on safeguarding linguistic heritage and ensuring more languages are digitally represented. 

Today, they work with low-resource languages, building tools for translation, documenting oral speech, transcribing and digitising archived texts, with community consent at the centre. In just two years, they’ve translated more than two million words across 22 languages, supported by volunteers in twenty countries.

But success has brought a bigger challenge: scaling responsibly. “Low-resource language AI isn’t only a machine-learning problem. It’s a trust problem.”

As NightOwl AI scaled, Anna Mae found herself thinking not just about what technology could do, but what it should do and how it should be built.

“The question isn’t only ‘Can we build this?’. It’s ‘Should we build it this way… and who benefits if we do?’” That search for deeper frameworks and more responsible leadership is what brought her to Oxford, enrolling onto our MSc in Major Programme Management.

And here is where her story comes full circle. “One of the first books I ever read was an Oxford dictionary. I used it to learn English - word by word - until the language that once embarrassed me became a tool I could command.”

Her infectious smile appears as she reflects on the irony of telling this story while standing in Oxford. “If I told my younger self she would one day study at Oxford, she would not have believed me.”

But Oxford matters far beyond symbolism. “It gives me the rigour to turn conviction into strategy: to think more clearly about ethics, governance, and systems that scale without losing their values.”

And, like many others who’ve sat in our classrooms at Oxford Saïd, she emphasises the impact of being surrounded by the right people. “Oxford puts me among people who challenge my assumptions and sharpen my thinking.”

I finish by asking Anna Mae what I ask everyone – why Oxford? “Oxford gives me a platform.”

“When you are a young indigenous woman insisting that language inclusion must be central to responsible AI, you are often asked to prove what should be obvious. Oxford helps me bring stronger frameworks and a leadership voice that is harder to dismiss.”

Yesterday she was a small girl struggling to find her voice. Today she’s an Oxford postgraduate student building AI systems and leading international digital initiatives.

Tomorrow? “A future where technology listens better… and no language is left behind.”