FG-spokenweb
Contents
Focus Group session on Spoken Web
Organizers/ Focal Point(s)
Pier Paolo Ficarelli (ILRI Asia KM - New Delhi) [p.ficarelli@cgiar.org]
The Spoken Web is a voice-enabled Internet technology that allows users to access and share information simply by talking over a telephone.
Some outputs
Aim of the Session
- To share the Voice Web Concept and the results of the meeting held in New Delhi with IBM on 7th October
- To recieve feedback for participants on its applicability to Africa and seek assistance on how to take this process forward
- To identify partners in Africa potentially interested in testing the technology or ready to linking up with the Indian platform
Outputs of the Session
Blog post [[1]]
The session was attended by about 20 people. A short video was used to illustrate the technology. Most of the participants were new to speech internet technologies (see [[2]]) Main comments on Spoken Web applicability to the development context, especially in Africa were:
- Technical understanding (searching, surfing, text to voice, IVR)
- Usability (trust, quality control,costs, complexity etc.)
- Comparative advantages with already existing voice or SMS digital platforms (e.g. Lifeline in India [[3]])
- Use (projects,social media, business, services, info push/pull, Ag-value chains etc.)
Participants were asked to show their interest in testing the technology based on graded scale from (+++) to (- - -). Most of participants were on the highly interested side (++), while an important minority of experts expressed their polarised view on the topic (+/-). A contact list of people interested in following the undergoing negotiations with IBM to start a number of coordinated pilots in India was drawn at the end of the session.