Voice-enabled internet will deliver e-learning solutions in Africa

British engineer and computer scientist, Tim Berners-Lee is already known for his valuable IT services along with the World Wide Web Foundation. But Tim's next humanitarian mission of providing voice-enabled internet in Africa would be unprecedented. The VOICES project has been initiated in Senegal and Mali for empowering the technically challenged community to access the internet with voice-enabled applications.

voices project

Steve Bratt, Web Foundation CEO, quoted that “VOICES will provide the tools, techniques, and training to make it easier to access the Web through voice. In doing so, we will explore the potential for billions of new users to access information and services from the Web.” Bratt and his team are coordinating research efforts for developing software applications catering to the local requirements. The application would allow an illiterate person to call a number, choose options from medical, farming and deriving information in a visual manner.

re greening in africa

The VOICES project would also support the Re-Greening in Africa initiative, which would inform farmers on ways to improvise vegetable farming. In an aggregate the Project VOICE encompasses: designing a free and open source platform, analyzing applicable business models, devising mechanism to build low-cost high quality text-to-speech and speech recognition engines and imparting training entrepreneurs for creating such services.

mobile communications

Bratt contends that “While close to 70% of citizens of the world today could access the Web through mobile communications, there are significant barriers blocking perhaps billions of people from using the Web at this time.” Surely, this advanced software can make the dark continent self-sustainable in the near future releasing them from the shackles of ignorance.

Via: Fast Company