The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research was established in October 1945 to engage in technical innovation and multidisciplinary research in support of national imperatives to serve industrial and socio-economic development. The CSIR delivers R&D in support of private and public sectors, with a considerable contribution to national initiatives, strategies and projects. 15% of total government expenditure on R&D, or about 4% of the total South African R&D expenditure, is annually allocated to the CSIR. Within the South African S&T context, the CSIR is committed to: (1) advance sustainable socio-economic development of the country’s people; (2) enhance competitiveness of South African industry; and (3) promote economic growth. The organization employs some 2,300 employees, with the main campus in Pretoria, plus operations in Johannesburg, Durban, Pietermaritzburg, Port Elizabeth, Stellenbosch and Cape Town. The CSIR boasts strategic relationships with science peers in the region as well as internationally. The Human Language Technology (HLT) Research Groups form a competency area within the CSIR’s Meraka Institute. The groups (Technology & Applications) study the way in which speech- and languagerelated technologies can be created and applied to benefit the people of southern Africa. The participating members have expertise in developing automatic speech recognition and speech synthesis technology for under-resourced languages, such as South Africa’s indigenous languages.