Ney Yibeogo - Hello World: A Voice Service Development Platform to Bridge the Web’s Digital Divide

The World Wide Web is a crucial open public space for knowledge sharing, content creation and application service provisioning for billions on this planet. Although it has a global reach, still more than three billion people do not have access to the Web, the majority of whom live in the Global South, often in rural regions, under low-resource conditions and with poor infrastructure. However, the need for knowledge sharing, content creation and application service provisioning is no less on the other side of this Digital Divide. In this paper we describe the Kasadaka platform that supports easy creation of local-content and voice-based information services, targeted at currently ‘unconnected’ populations and matching the associated resource and infrastructural requirements. The Kasadaka platform and especially its Voice Service Development Kit supports the formation of an ecosystem of decentralized voice-based information services that serve local populations and communities. This is, in fact, very much analogous to the services and functionalities offered by the Web, but in regions where Internet and Web are absent and will continue to be for the foreseeable future.