Day: September 10, 2022

Voice-operated smartphones are aiming at a vast yet widely overlooked market in sub-Saharan Africa — the tens of millions of people who face huge challenges in life because they cannot read or write.

 

In Ivory Coast, a so-called “Superphone” using a vocal assistant that responds to commands in a local language is being pitched to the large segment of the population — as many as 40 percent — who are illiterate.

 

Developed and assembled locally, the phone is designed to make everyday tasks more accessible, from understanding a document and checking a bank balance to communicating with government agencies.

 

“I’ve just bought this phone for my parents back home in the village, who don’t know how to read or write,” said Floride Jogbe, a young woman who was impressed by adverts on social media.

 

She believed the 60,000 CFA francs ($92) she forked out was money well spent.

 

The smartphone uses an operating system called “Kone” that is unique to the Cerco company, and covers 17 languages spoken in Ivory Coast, including Baoule, Bete, and Dioula, as well as 50 other African languages.

 

Cerco hopes to expand this to 1,000 languages, reaching half of the continent’s population, thanks to help from a network of 3,000 volunteers.

 

The goal is to address the “frustration” illiterate people feel with technology that requires them to be able to read or write or spell effectively, said Cerco president Alain Capo-Chichi, a Benin national.

 

“Various institutions set down the priority of making people literate before making technology available to them,” he told AFP.

 

“Our way skips reading and writing and goes straight to integrating people into economic and social life.”

 

Of the 750 million adults around the world who cannot read or write, 27 percent live south of the Sahara, according to UN figures for 2016, the latest year for which data is available.

 

The continent also hosts nearly 2,000 languages, some of which are spoken by tens of millions of people and are used for inter-ethnic communication, while others are dialects with a small geographical spread.

 

Lack of numbers or economic clout often means these languages are overlooked by developers who have already devised vocal assistants for languages in bigger markets.

Twi and Kiswahili

 

Other companies investing in the voice-operation field in Africa include Mobobi, which has created a Twi language voice assistant in Ghana called Abena AI, while Mozilla is working on an assistant in Kiswahili, which has an estimated 100 million speakers in East Africa.

 

Telecommunications expert Jean-Marie Akepo questioned whether voice operation needed the platform of a dedicated mobile phone.

 

Existing technology “manages to satisfy people”, he said.

 

“With the voice message services offered by WhatsApp, for example, a large part of the problem has already been solved.”

 

Instead of a new phone, he recommended “software with local languages that could be installed on any smartphone”.

 

The Ivorian phone is being produced at the ICT and Biotechnology Village in Grand-Bassam, a free-trade zone located near the Ivorian capital.

 

It came about through close collaboration with the government. The company pays no taxes or customs duties and the assembly plant has benefited from a subsidy of more than two billion CFA francs.

 

In exchange, Cerco is to pay 3.5 percent of its income to the state and train around 1,200 young people each year.

 

The company says it has received 200,000 orders since launch on July 21.

 

Thanks to a partnership with French telecommunications giant Orange, the phone will be distributed in 200 shops across Ivory Coast.

 

Source: Voice of America

MOGADISHU, SOMALIA — Somalia says the country’s elite military unit has killed a senior al-Shabab commander in an operation in the Lower Shabelle region. Federal police say civilian hostages were freed during the operation.

 

Somali police spokesman Sadiq Adan Ali Doodishe said Somalia’s elite military unit had conducted an operation against the al-Qaida-affiliated Islamist militant group al-Shabab, killing two senior commanders and wounding 10 others.

 

Police say the operation’s aim was to destroy al-Shabab’s main extortion base in the small town of Mubarak, located 95 kilometers southwest of Somalia’s capital, Mogadishu.

 

During a news conference in Mogadishu Saturday, the spokesman said the army killed a senior al-Shabab commander known by the name “Carab”, and Aw Maaye, who was in charge al-Shabab’s extortion operations in Mubarak.

 

Doodishe said during the operation the military freed civilian hostages from the militant group.

 

He said around 5:00 p.m. local time, the elite unit from the Somali national army conducted the operation targeting a place the terrorists used to extort money from civilians. In accordance with the statement from the Ministry of Information, the army killed Carab, the deputy al-Shabab leader in the town of Mubarak, and Aw Maaye, who was the al-Shabab foreman in charge of extortion. He said during the operation dozens of others were wounded, including the group’s leader in charge of Mubarak. He said at the time of the operation al-Shabab was holding civilians hostage for extortion but the army freed the hostages. Some of them were hurt during the operation.

 

Police have warned the public against aiding al-Shabab.

 

Doodishe said the public has been told that it’s a crime to have sympathy toward al-Shabab and collaborate with the group. Anyone who is engaged in that activity will be brought to justice, he added.

 

Local media and residents reported that there was an airstrike involved in the military operation against al-Shabab on Friday.

 

The Islamist group claimed that the airstrike killed 10 people and wounded 20 others, all civilians.

 

VOA could not independently verify the airstrike nor the civilian deaths.

 

Somalia has been grappling with increasing insecurity in recent years. Al-Shabab is one of the main threats and is responsible for deadly attacks across the country and in neighboring Kenya.

 

Source: Voice of America

Ebrima Sillah, Minister of Transport, Works and Infrastructure has said that his Ministry is ready to work hand in hand with Rohey Malick Lowe, Mayor of Banjul,  for the full implementation of the Banjul rehabilitation project, which include roads, sewage and the drainage system of the capital.

 

Minister Sillah made these remarks during a major press conference on Thursday, September 1, 2022, sanctioned by the government of The Gambia on the ongoing Banjul rehabilitation project, held at the Sir Dawda Kairaba Jawara International Conference Center in Bijilo.

 

“There will be a new relationship because at the end of the day, it is in the interest of both the government and the city council to work together to see that the magnitude of investment that has gone into Banjul, marches with the sanitation and sanitary conditions of the people of Banjul,” he said.

 

According to Sillah, all hands would be on deck in terms of collecting and cleaning of the city at all times. He further stated that government would also ensure that the project is on the right course and anything relating to the project are in place.

 

Speaking earlier, Lamin Queen Jammeh, new Minister of Information, said the press conference was organized in line with the fulfilment of the  good democratic values and principles of the government.

 

He further added that the press conference would also go a long way in clarifying so many issues regarding the Banjul rehabilitation project for the general understanding of the public. “This is an important democratic requirement,” he added.

 

Karamo Jaiteh, the consultant of the project, said that the entire networks of collector drains, secondary and tertiary drains were all cleaned before and during the raining season of last year and the exercise is being repeated.

 

Mr. Jaiteh stated that collapse drain wall have been reconstructed and covers placed on open drains along with the reconstruction of sidewalks.

 

On the sewerage works, the consultant mentioned that most of the manholes have been desilted,  all blockages along the network have been removed, and that most of the manhole covers on newly constructed concrete pavement have been replaced.

 

Talking about the road works of the city, the consultant stated that progress on the reconstruction of the road pavement has covered 95 percent of the streets identified in the original scope and 85 percent of those in the addendum.

 

The press conference was attended by cabinet ministers, permanent secretaries and other senior government officials.

 

Source: Ministry of Transport, Works & Infrastructure