Preserving Mongolia’s Heritage Through Artificial Intelligence

When I sat down with Vicky for a one-on-one interview in Auckland, I anticipated it would be much like any other I've conducted. She was in New Zealand as a panellist at the Aotearoa AI Summit, brought here through the invitation and support of the Asia New Zealand Foundation Te Whitu Tūhono.

However, I soon discovered that our conversation would take me on an unexpected journey into a world I'd never explored before—Mongolia.

During the summit and in our conversation, Vicky highlighted the pivotal role artificial intelligence plays in preserving Mongolian language and culture. She remarked, "Nobody is talking about how to save our culture and language using [AI] technology, and maybe that’s why so many are afraid of it. But if what we create can save our culture, language, and daily lifestyle, no one will fear it. Right?"

She then walked me through how things are done in Mongolia, particularly how software companies have made it their mission to focus on preserving their cultural and linguistic heritage. A prime example is Bolorsoft, a company founded in 2008 that specialises in AI and natural language processing (NLP).

Bolorsoft is renowned for its innovations in addressing Mongolian language-related issues in the digital space. Among its flagship products are Bolor Toli, Mongolia’s first multilingual online dictionary, and Bolor Duran, an automated spell-check tool.

The company has also developed Kimo, a translation tool designed to convert text between Mongolia’s traditional script and the Cyrillic alphabet. This tool is widely used in Mongolia, not only for its practicality but also for its role in preserving the country's rich linguistic heritage in both historical and modern forms.

Additionally, Bolorsoft created Egune and Kudos. Egune is a virtual assistant designed for language processing and text editing, providing tools such as spell checking and grammar correction to support the Mongolian language. Kudos, on the other hand, is an AI-based media monitoring system that tracks news and information from various online sources, including websites, X, and Facebook.

Despite Mongolia having access to various international websites and AI tools like ChatGPT and Google Gemini, Vicky pointed out that many people still prefer to use local tools. "These machines are not native speakers of our language," she explained.

Vicky also noted, "Mongolian is one of the hardest languages in the world. It's not just because of the Cyrillic script, but because we once had beautiful traditional scripts that expressed rich vocabulary deeply tied to our culture. It was only in 1946, we adopted the Cyrillic script due to Russian influence. However, when the Russians left, we regained the freedom to relearn our traditional scripts."

Vicky was born at a time when Mongolia was still under Soviet authority. Despite the equality promoted by socialist policies, the Soviet Union discouraged ethnic nationalism and, in 1940s, enforced the Cyrillic script, replacing Mongolia’s traditional writing system. This significantly limited the cultural expression and identity of the Mongolian people at that time.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1990, Mongolia experienced the Democratic Revolution. The equality and restricted lifestyle they had grown accustomed to changed dramatically. For many Westerners, who were born and raised in democratic societies, it might seem easy to assume that Mongolians were fortunate to gain their freedom. However, for many locals, including Vicky, her family, and friends, the sudden shift from a controlled environment to freedom felt more like a crisis. "We suddenly had to fend for ourselves," she said.

"All those factories and industries in Mongolia shut down immediately, and people began talking about democracy. Political parties multiplied, and it shocked the population. It felt like a crisis. Even though we could finally speak about Genghis Khan and the 1937 religious tragedy," she added.

The tragedy Vicky referred to was one of the darkest chapters in Mongolian history—the Religious Purges of 1937, also known as Stalinist Repression. This genocide, carried out under the orders of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, led to the massacre of over 17,000 monks and the destruction of 800 monasteries. Buddhism was wiped out, as religious belief was seen as a threat to the Soviet regime's control during that period.

As Mongolia transitioned into the 1990s as a newly democratic nation, locals slowly began to reconnect with their culture, language, and identity. However, the rise of new media and greater exposure to English-language content meant that the younger generation became more influenced by English than their traditional Mongolian language.

Vicky pointed out that, before Bolorsoft developed software aimed at preserving the Mongolian language and culture, many of the books available were from overseas. "Our books were rarely written by local authors; they were mostly translations of bestsellers from other languages."

With the help of AI, the traditional Mongolian language can be preserved by incorporating Mongolian folklore and literature into modern technology. She expressed, "The worldview of our nomadic people is distinct from Western cultures. Our language, lifestyle, and geography are all integral parts of our identity. So, the data we create reflects how we understand the world, not how others perceive us."

During the interview, I couldn't help but ask Vicky why she is so dedicated to preserving the traditional Mongolian language and sees AI as the key to achieving this goal. She smiled and shared a captivating personal story, explaining that her journey into AI was entirely unexpected.

Raised as a nomad in the Gobi region of southern Mongolia, her early life was far from the world of technology.

For 16 years, Vicky knew only the nomadic way of life—enduring freezing winters, eating horsemeat to stay nourished, herding animals in the spring, and constantly battling the fierce Yellow Storms that swept across the plains.

From the moment she was born, Vicky was already a survivor.

Born prematurely and weighing barely a kilogram, doctors and nurses were unsure if she would make it. She was placed in an incubator, sharing the space with another baby boy. Miraculously, both survived. Vicky was named Enkhsaikhan, meaning "Peace and Beauty." Her name seemed to signal a destiny for greatness from the start.

Life in the Gobi, however, was particularly harsh. "We had no lakes, no rivers, and no mountains to shield us from the wind—it was just an endless, barren expanse of rocky land," she explained. "People often ask how I survived such extreme conditions. My answer is simple: if you understand the culture, you can survive. Water was so scarce that we had to dig it from the ground."

She went on to say that the Gobi is not for everyone—not even for most Mongolians. In the past, the government would exile people there as punishment. But for Vicky, it was always home.

Carrying the strong identity of being a nomad, Vicky’s life changed when her parents divorced, and she moved with her mother to Ulaanbaatar to live with her grandmother. Her uncle, noticing her potential, enrolled her in one of the city's top schools, where she excelled in academics, sports, and extracurricular activities. Vicky inherited her talents from her parents—her father was skilled in music, while her mother excelled in Math.

After completing a degree in broadcast journalism, Vicky didn’t pursue that path. Instead, she moved to Japan, China, and Taiwan, where she learned new languages and cultures. Eventually, she settled in Malaysia with her family, before returning to Mongolia in 2014.

Given Mongolia's heavy reliance on the mining industry, which is central to the economy due to its abundant natural resources like coal, copper, gold, and iron ore, Vicky entered the sector and eventually became head of sales at a Mongolian mining company. However, after three years, she found the work unfulfilling and decided to move on.

Around that time, Empasoft approached her with an offer to join their team, even though she openly admitted she had no background in tech. Despite her initial hesitation, a meeting that was supposed to last 20 minutes turned into a company visit, where Vicky became convinced of Empasoft’s mission to provide technological solutions to the public—an unusual focus in a country where mining dominates.

Trusting her instincts, Vicky joined Empasoft as a training manager and, the following year, became the company's CEO. Under her leadership, Empasoft established its first university, offering IT education, software development, and other digital disciplines to Mongolians.

Vicky also shared that, during her time as a training manager, she noticed that there were only one or two women in her programme. The tech industry in Mongolia was male-dominated, not because companies were unwilling to invest in women, but because women themselves lacked the confidence to enter an industry they knew little about.

Drawing on her experience in Malaysia, where she had published six books on women’s rights, Vicky was determined to open doors for Mongolian women in tech.

“What I realised is that we need to empower each other in the technology field. I know several women who are very successful, working as engineers, in backend or frontend development, IT auditing, or IT governance,” she explained. “So, in 2019, I discussed with my colleagues, and we decided to celebrate International Women’s Rights Day in a coffee shop. I thought I could invite ten of my engineer friends for a coffee and a chat. Then I posted the event on social media as a Women in Tech Mongolia coffee shop event.”

Her expectation was for 10 to 20 women to attend, but to her surprise, 1,000 women registered the next day. What started as a small coffee meeting quickly grew into a larger event, with over 200 women attending the first Women in Tech Summit in Mongolia.

Vicky went on to establish the Women in Science and Technology Association in Mongolia and became the country's ambassador for Women in Tech Global. Their summits continue to this day, with more than 100,000 women in Mongolia now showing interest in the tech industry. This is also reflected in the enrolments at Empasoft University, where 30 per cent of students are girls.

After speaking with Vicky, I now understand where her vision and mission stem from. As a woman, a Mongolian nomad by birth, and eventually a tech executive, her drive to pursue a passion larger than herself makes perfect sense.

There is no sign of her slowing down, as Vicky is now venturing into a new chapter—politics—by running for the local election.

In a time when AI remains a topic of debate, Vicky Enkhsaikhan has embraced it as a tool to help Mongolia preserve its language and culture—a futuristic, cutting-edge technology with the power to safeguard the past.

She remarked, "Technology is advancing by the second, right? Every day, someone is working to make it better and better. But one day, when we look back, what if we've become like technology ourselves, as humans—without progress, without success, without purpose or value? We would be nothing. This is the time to look back."

"When we train machines, we cannot compare humans to them. Machines keep learning and are now generating things beyond our capabilities. So, what will save us? Competing with machines? No—it’s our humanity, our culture, and our language. That’s what truly defines us and what we must protect."

-Asia Media Centre