The Aya Multilingual project aims to address the imbalance in language representation within AI technologies by improving multilingual generative models and expanding language access. Despite the prevalence of English on the internet, there are about 7,000 languages worldwide, with many lacking adequate representation in AI models, often due to limited computational resources in regions where these languages are spoken. Aya, symbolizing endurance and resourcefulness, invites individuals from various backgrounds to contribute to this open science initiative, which is supported by Cohere For AI and involves participants from over 100 countries. By open-sourcing models, training data, and data collection tools, Aya seeks to democratize language technology and foster a global community dedicated to ensuring diverse languages are included in the future of generative AI. The project encourages collaboration via a dedicated Discord server, enabling contributors to connect and work together to enhance language representation and overcome the digital divide.