About the VOICES project

The VOICES project is funded in part by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme. The project started 1st January 2011 for a period of 30 months.

The consortium driving the project consists of 12 partner organizations.

The objectives of the VOICES project are to:

• Improve voice-based access to content and mobile ICT services through the development of a free and open source toolbox for local developers.
• Integrate local community radios and ICT to leverage the quality and the volume of radio content broadcast and sharing.
• Better support and integrate local languages in voice-based services through the development of appropriate speech elements (text-to-speech and Speech recognition) for underresourced language such as Wolof.
• Investigate self-sustainability of voice-based services through the identification and development of appropriate business models in collaboration with local communities.
• Enhance uptake of this new channel for ICT services through community building activities, development of specific capacity building initiatives and involvement of local ICT developers.

VOICES wants to validate the fitness of the results and their relevance to the African rural context. For this purpose pilots for health in Senegal and agriculture in Mali have been deployed.