{"id":341,"date":"2014-05-23T09:10:25","date_gmt":"2014-05-23T01:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.www.innovationiseverywhere.com\/?p=341"},"modified":"2014-05-23T09:10:25","modified_gmt":"2014-05-23T01:10:25","slug":"reaching-illiterate-people-emerging-countries-power-voice-based-mobile-apps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/reaching-illiterate-people-emerging-countries-power-voice-based-mobile-apps\/","title":{"rendered":"Reaching illiterate people in the emerging countries: the power of voice based mobile apps"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"p1\">While attending <a title=\"MWA 2014\" href=\"reaching the illiterate in emerging markets\u00a0\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Mobile West Africa<\/a> in Lagos, Nigeria, we again were confronted with<strong> a key trend of technology in the emerging markets: voice-based apps<\/strong>. In Africa, for instance <strong>38% adults are still illiterate<\/strong>, as well as<strong> 25% in Asia<\/strong> (not forgetting the incredibly huge <strong>14% of illiterate people among adults in the US<\/strong>). Internet technologies are for most of them based of text (and completeley built with text languages) and visuals. In a part of the world where smartphone accounts for only 10% of the market, <strong>voice<\/strong> is the only way to get an information. And it can be quite efficient.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\">Voto, a Ghana based voice app to survey remote populations and deliver the messages from the government<\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">The story of <a title=\"Voto Mobile Ghana\" href=\"http:\/\/www.votomobile.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Voto Mobile<\/a> is compelling, for they really had to face their field to find out the best way to get in touch with the population. Originally, this startup based in <strong>Ghana<\/strong> aimed to <strong>survey populations in remote areas<\/strong> on behalf of large international organizations and NGOs. They were soon confronted to the reality of low-tech phones and illiterate people.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/voto-mobile-innovation-is-everywhere-ghana-nigeria-africa-mobile-survey-martin-pasquier-mobile-west-africa-conference-1-3.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><br \/>\n<\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/voto-mobile-innovation-is-everywhere-ghana-nigeria-africa-mobile-survey-martin-pasquier-mobile-west-africa-conference-3-3.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-353\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/voto-mobile-innovation-is-everywhere-ghana-nigeria-africa-mobile-survey-martin-pasquier-mobile-west-africa-conference-3-3.jpg\" alt=\"voto mobile innovation is everywhere ghana nigeria africa mobile survey martin pasquier mobile west africa conference 3\" width=\"640\" height=\"531\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p2\">After a lot of test and try, Voto managed to design a solution which was based both on the <strong>voice<\/strong>, and their present-day methodology shows how to <strong>improve the efficiency of these calls depending on local factors and incentives <\/strong>(see full case study on their <a title=\"Voto mobile methodology mobile surveying africa\" href=\"http:\/\/www.votomobile.org\/files\/VOTO_SurveyingLessonsLearned.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">site<\/a>):<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Pay attention to your respondents\u2019 preferences and schedule<\/li>\n<li>Use the \ufb01rst twenty seconds to\u00a0build trust<\/li>\n<li>Make a Real-World Connection<\/li>\n<li>Mind the Drop-o\ufb00<\/li>\n<li>Be Clear and Comprehensible<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/voto-mobile-ghana-voice-sms-surevy-africa-mobile-west-africa-innovation-is-everywhere-martin-pasquier-1-3.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-344\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/voto-mobile-ghana-voice-sms-surevy-africa-mobile-west-africa-innovation-is-everywhere-martin-pasquier-1-3.jpg\" alt=\"voto mobile ghana voice sms surevy africa mobile west africa innovation is everywhere martin pasquier 1\" width=\"639\" height=\"221\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/voto-mobile-ghana-voice-sms-surevy-africa-mobile-west-africa-innovation-is-everywhere-martin-pasquier-2-3.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-345\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/voto-mobile-ghana-voice-sms-surevy-africa-mobile-west-africa-innovation-is-everywhere-martin-pasquier-2-3.jpg\" alt=\"voto mobile ghana voice sms surevy africa mobile west africa innovation is everywhere martin pasquier 1\" width=\"640\" height=\"221\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/voto-mobile-ghana-voice-sms-surevy-africa-mobile-west-africa-innovation-is-everywhere-martin-pasquier-3-3.jpg\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-346\" src=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/voto-mobile-ghana-voice-sms-surevy-africa-mobile-west-africa-innovation-is-everywhere-martin-pasquier-3-3.jpg\" alt=\"voto mobile ghana voice sms surevy africa mobile west africa innovation is everywhere martin pasquier 1\" width=\"640\" height=\"196\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Voice doesn&rsquo;t only allow illiterate people to be heard, literally, they also <strong>convey more data than a simple SMS<\/strong>. For instance, Voto is able to track and monitor the <strong>time spent on the phone<\/strong>, the <strong>language<\/strong> used in a part of the world where regional and local dialects\u00a0abound, as well as the <strong>number of attempts<\/strong> to get a person on the phone, which may be a sign of a good timing or of a network breakdown.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Voto is<strong> collecting data on population rarely surveyed<\/strong>, and also provides for the government <strong>a way to deliver its main messages<\/strong>, on education and health for instance, to a population which they can&rsquo;t access because of their remoteness or a lack of infrastructure.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\"><a href=\"http:\/\/innovao.cluster030.hosting.ovh.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/innovation-is-everywhere-mobile-west-africa-nigeria-voice-apps-ghana-voto-sterio-martin-pasquier-e1407468062741-3.png\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-343\" src=\"http:\/\/www.www.innovationiseverywhere.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/05\/innovation-is-everywhere-mobile-west-africa-nigeria-voice-apps-ghana-voto-sterio-martin-pasquier-1024x671.png\" alt=\"innovation is everywhere mobile west africa nigeria voice apps ghana voto sterio martin pasquier\" width=\"618\" height=\"404\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Running the surveys with voice proved much more efficient than with text-based SMS, as this sample from their data clearly shows.<\/p>\n<h2 class=\"p1\">Sterio.me,\u00a0enhanced mobile education\u00a0for teachers and learners through recorded lessons and homework<\/h2>\n<p class=\"p1\">Another startup, launched by Dutchman and African traveller <a title=\"Christopher Pruijsen\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/CPruijsen\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><strong>Christopher Pruijsen<\/strong><\/a>, tackles the huge opportunity of <strong>education<\/strong> in the continent. His app allows anyone <strong>to send an SMS to a service which will in turn call back, for free, to give lessons on words or topics<\/strong> and increase the time of education out of the classroom.<\/p>\n<p><iframe src=\"\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/92335863\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/92335863\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Welcome to Sterio.me<\/a> from <a href=\"http:\/\/vimeo.com\/steriome\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Sterio.me<\/a> on <a href=\"https:\/\/vimeo.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Vimeo<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">On one side,<strong> teachers can record their lessons or quizzes,<\/strong> a format adapted to mobile for its short length, and on the other side, the <strong>learner can listen to the voice of the teacher and answer with his voice too<\/strong>. The teacher can analyze asynchronously the results, get insights and build a personal relationship on the data of previous calls, whatever the distance with the learner.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">Interestingly enough, the idea came during another project Christopher has been running, called <a title=\"Founder Bus\" href=\"http:\/\/founderbus.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Founder Bus<\/a>, which gathers on 5 days about 30 developers and startupers in a bus, to achieve a prototype of a startup. With a sharp angle on social impact, the crowd of each bus usually include 50% foreigners and at least 30% women.<\/p>\n<p class=\"p1\">A (very) few other services based on voice use phones to reconnect remote or illiterate people to the Internet. One of them to be noticed is <a title=\"M Voices\" href=\"http:\/\/mvoices.eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Voices<\/a>, sponsored by the European Commission, and designed to allow more people to give feedback on important topics. The app was for instance used by <a title=\"Al Jazeera voice \" href=\"http:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/mg21829145.900-voicebased-web-access-helps-illiterate-get-online.html#.U34LL1iSwSQ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Al-Jazeera<\/a>\u00a0last year during elections in Ghana and Kenya, precisely to get the voices of the unheard.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While attending Mobile West Africa in Lagos, Nigeria, we again were confronted with a key trend of technology in the emerging markets: voice-based apps. In Africa, for instance 38% adults are still illiterate, as well as 25% in Asia (not forgetting the incredibly huge 14% of illiterate people among adults in the US). Internet technologies [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":1526,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[47,49,51,118],"tags":[69,125,141,79,108,142,143,144],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-countries","category-innovators-category","category-markets-category","category-social-enterprises","tag-africa","tag-feature-phones","tag-ghana","tag-mobile","tag-nigeria","tag-research","tag-survey","tag-voice"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/innovationiseverywhere.com\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}