Voice-based access to Linked Market Data in the Sahel

Victor de Boer

With input from Nana Baah Gyan, Chris van Aart, Wendelien Tuyp, Stephane Boyera,

Aman Grewal, Christophe Guéret, Hans Akkermans, Anna Bon, Frank van Harmelen

Web for Regreening in Africa (W4RA)

• Knowledge sharing issues– Distances between rural communities in

Sahel– Infrastructure and access

• Commonly: no electricity, no computer, no internet• But: mobile and radio

– Lack of relevant content• Literacy and education

– Languages

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Can the Web (be made to) mean something for knowledge sharing even under very constraining conditions?

No internet, no computer, no electricity

Multitude of languages, levels of literacy

CAUTION! DIGITAL DIVIDE

AHEAD

Aim: integrate Web with mobile access & voice services

• service development toolbox, field deployment in Africa & make a sustainable business out of it

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• Integrate local community radios and mobile ICT for knowledge sharing

• Better support and integrate local languages in voice-based services– Development of appropriate speech elements (text-to-speech

and Speech recognition)

• Develop a free and open source toolbox for local developers.

• Investigate self-sustainability – Develop appropriate business models – In collaboration with local communities.

Voice-based services in a rural African context

(adapted) Living Labs• Involvement of local

communities– trust and ownership

• Rapid cycles– Use case gathering– Observation and prototyping– Test, adapt

• Context-specific issues– Lack of infrastructure– Illiteracy, ‘small’ language– Local ownership and maintainability– Distance between developer and

user

M-agro Use Case Context: Regreening in Africa

Image by Onno Wassenaar

RadioMarche: Use web/voice technology to improve access to market data

Sahel Eco aggregates market info

Market info

Radio 1

Radio 2

Radio broadcast

French

Bambara

French

Bomu

@, www, g

sm“Communiqué”

Data management

RadioMarche.com

Voice channel: Multiple solutions

Netbook running Prophecy

SIP over Ethernet

NetbookHTTP

Officeroute running Asterix

Orange Emerginov Platform

Netbook running Prophecy + Asterix

Bluetooth

Mobile phone

Audio communiqué

• Audio communiqué generated by concatenating prerecorded phrases– Each radio host uses own voice (!)

• Text-to-speech where possible

• Currently only for French

• Audio quality is an issue

Voice XML

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1"?><vxml version="2.0" lang="en"> <form> <prompt bargein="false"> Welcome to RadioMarche! <audio src=“audio/communique_1_bambara.wav"/> </prompt> <option dtmf="1" value=“1">Press one for X</option> <option dtmf=“2" value=“2">Press two for Y</option> ...</vxml>

Current testing phase

• Limited usage due to:– Political situation– Ecological situation– Social barriers– Technical issues

• Feedback informs next phase– More languages (Bambara, Bomu)– More radio stations– End user

Other use cases and projects

VOICES use cases

• M-agri event organizer– Schedule events, automatic calls to

farmers’ representatives.– Agricultural knowledge sharing

• M-health knowledge sharing– Use case in Senegal– Share health knowledge

Foroba Blon

• Citizen journalism platform – using the same technology as RadioMarché

• Multiple use cases – Letters to editor– Trusted users ‘journalists’

• Funded by IPI news innovation contest

Interaction design for low-literacy communities

Beyond the use case:Sharing the Data

Across regions

Local market data

RadioMarché market information system

Farmers (producers)

Buyers (consumers)

Email GSM/VoiceWeb SMS

Data / communique platform

Local radio

RadioMarché in second region

Local market data

Data / communique layer

Farmers (producers)

Buyers (consumers)

Email GSM/VoiceWeb SMS

Interface handler layer

Local radio

ClioPatria Linked Data server

DBpedia

GeoNames

Agrovoc

Inst. of Development Studies LOD

RadioMarché Linked market data

Citizen Journalism data

Sahel Pluvial data

SemanticXO

ClioPatria Linked Data server

`Ecomash’ Client application

<VoiceXML> to SPARQL*

Voice browserTel: +31208080855

Skype: +990009369996162208

RadioMarché Linked market

data

‘Allo, Linked Data?

Research questions

• Q1 [immediate]: Can the Web (be made to) mean something for knowledge sharing even under very constraining conditions?– No internet, no computer, no electricity– Multitude of languages, levels of literacy

• Q2 [Web future]: Can we have a Web of Speech?– After all, human communication:

talking >> writing

Questions?

w4ra.few.vu.nl

semweb4u.wordpress.com

worldwidesemanticweb.wordpress.com