research-article

Voice-based web access in rural Africa

Authors:

Nana Baah Gyan,

Victor de Boer,

Chris van Aart,

Hans Akkermans,

Stephane Boyera,

Max Froumentin,

Mary AllenAuthors Info & Claims

WebSci '13: Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Web Science Conference

Pages 122 - 131

https://doi.org/10.1145/2464464.2464496

Published: 02 May 2013 Publication History

Abstract

Despite its tremendous success, the World Wide Web can still not used by large parts of the world's population. Therefore, many people, especially in rural areas of developing countries, still do not have access to services and information that are available as a result of the World Wide Web. Given the potential of the Web in improving people's lives, a question is how it can be expanded to serve those living in less privileged conditions. Information must then be reachable regardless of infrastructure, allowing access using also interfaces such as radio and mobile phone. There is widespread use and adoption of radio and mobile telephony in Africa and thus, innovative use of these technologies could help in expanding the reach of the Web. In this paper we present three systems, based on open Web standards, designed and built to fit conditions in remote rural regions in Africa namely, a voice-based (i) trading system, using phone and radio as its interfaces, (ii) a voice-web based interactive news and blogging system and (iii) messaging system. The systems have been developed and have been deployed in Mali. All three systems together showcase the importance that innovation plays in order to make Web technologies relevant in the lives of many rural dwellers in Africa. We show the current status and usage of the systems and discuss how these systems represent our steps into bringing the Web to these contexts.

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Cited By

Stan GBaart ADittoh FAkkermans HBon ABaeza-Yates RWeller KPortela MSeneviratne OWeber IYasseri TBon ASrinivas SIbáñez L(2022)A Lightweight Downscaled Approach to Automatic Speech Recognition for Small Indigenous LanguagesProceedings of the 14th ACM Web Science Conference 202210.1145/3501247.3539017(451-458)Online publication date: 26-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3501247.3539017
Bon AGordijn JAkkermans H(2020)E-Service Innovation in Rural Africa Through Value Co-CreationSustainable Business10.4018/978-1-5225-9615-8.ch058(1294-1312)Online publication date: 2020
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-9615-8.ch058
Bon AGordijn JAkkermans H(2020)E-Service Innovation in Rural Africa Through Value Co-CreationDisruptive Technology10.4018/978-1-5225-9273-0.ch043(859-877)Online publication date: 2020
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-9273-0.ch043
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Voice-based web access in rural Africa
1. Human-centered computing

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cover image ACM Conferences

WebSci '13: Proceedings of the 5th Annual ACM Web Science Conference

May 2013

481 pages

ISBN:9781450318891

DOI:10.1145/2464464

Conference Chairs:
Hugh Davis
University of Southampton
,
Harry Halpin
World Wide Web Consortium
,
Alex Pentland,
Program Chairs:
Mark Bernstein,
Lada Adamic,
Harith Alani,
Alexandre Monnin,
Richard Rogers

Copyright © 2013 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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SIGWEB: ACM Special Interest Group on Hypertext, Hypermedia, and Web

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New York, NY, United States

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Published: 02 May 2013

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Cited By

Stan GBaart ADittoh FAkkermans HBon ABaeza-Yates RWeller KPortela MSeneviratne OWeber IYasseri TBon ASrinivas SIbáñez L(2022)A Lightweight Downscaled Approach to Automatic Speech Recognition for Small Indigenous LanguagesProceedings of the 14th ACM Web Science Conference 202210.1145/3501247.3539017(451-458)Online publication date: 26-Jun-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3501247.3539017
Bon AGordijn JAkkermans H(2020)E-Service Innovation in Rural Africa Through Value Co-CreationSustainable Business10.4018/978-1-5225-9615-8.ch058(1294-1312)Online publication date: 2020
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-9615-8.ch058
Bon AGordijn JAkkermans H(2020)E-Service Innovation in Rural Africa Through Value Co-CreationDisruptive Technology10.4018/978-1-5225-9273-0.ch043(859-877)Online publication date: 2020
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-9273-0.ch043
Baart ABon Ade Boer VDittoh FTuijp WAkkermans H(2020)Affordable Voice Services to Bridge the Digital Divide: Presenting the Kasadaka PlatformWeb Information Systems and Technologies10.1007/978-3-030-35330-8_10(195-220)Online publication date: 17-Jan-2020
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-35330-8_10
Bon AGordijn JAkkermans H(2017)E-Service Innovation in Rural Africa Through Value Co-CreationHandbook of Research on Strategic Alliances and Value Co-Creation in the Service Industry10.4018/978-1-5225-2084-9.ch018(355-373)Online publication date: 2017
https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-5225-2084-9.ch018
Mramba NRumanyika JApiola MSuhonen J(2017)ICT for informal workers in Sub-Saharan Africa: Systematic review and analysis2017 IEEE AFRICON10.1109/AFRCON.2017.8095530(486-491)Online publication date: Sep-2017
https://doi.org/10.1109/AFRCON.2017.8095530
Schlobach Sde Boer VGuéret CBoyera SCudré-Mauroux P(2015)From Knowledge Engineering for Development to Development InformaticsKnowledge Engineering and Knowledge Management10.1007/978-3-319-17966-7_2(18-29)Online publication date: 21-Apr-2015
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-17966-7_2
Gueret Cde Boer VSchlobach S(2014)Let's "Downscale" Linked DataIEEE Internet Computing10.1109/MIC.2014.2918:2(70-73)Online publication date: Mar-2014
https://doi.org/10.1109/MIC.2014.29

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