VOIce-based Community-cEntric mobile Services for social development

Abstract

There is widespread agreement that ICT services have the potential to play a major role in furthering social development in developing economies such as those in Africa. However, while there is a great deal of potential and opportunity, the amount and scope of actual mobile ICT services currently in existence in African countries is very limited.\n\nThe Mobile Web for Social Development Roadmap, recently published as a result of the FP7 Digital World Forum project, makes it clear that realizing the potential of mobile ICT services requires addressing two major types of challenges:\n1. The leveraging of content that is locally relevant; and\n2. The removal of a range of access barriers, notably limitations related to access channels, literacy, and languages.\n\nVOICES intends to take a major step forward in realizing the potential of mobile ICT services particularly in the African context and resolve key challenges outlined in the Mobile Web for Social Development Roadmap. To this end, the objectives of VOICES are to deliver:\n- Open and wider access: VOICES will improve voice-based access to content and mobile ICT services by building a toolbox for the development of voice services.\n- Integration of Local Community Radios and ICT.\n- Better support of languages: It will deliver tool support and methodology for under researched and under resourced African languages.\n- Long-term sustainability: To ensure the local adoption and exploitation of the VOICES tools and methods beyond the project, it will provide a sustainable architecture.\n- Faster uptake: VOICES will furthermore enhance uptake by delivering a mobile training lab that offers capacity building for local partners.\n\nVOICES will demonstrate the fitness of its results for adaptation to the African context by extensive local pilots and associated community building, namely through the focus on health services in Senegal, and agricultural and regreening knowledge sharing in the Sahel countries.