“Foroba Blon” The Web of African Radios

@First International Workshop on Downscaling the Semantic Web Part 1 – Challenges

Anna Bon, Victor de Boer, Pieter De Leenheer, Chris van

Aart, Nana Baah Gyan, Hans Akkermans 28 May 2012

Area of research

The context

Social, cultural...

• How we understand the context... • Organizing a project across continents... • A coup d’état...

Challenges...

• equipment, internet, smartphones • electricity • cost of phonecalls • sustainability and ecosystems

More challenges

• low levels of literacy • low levels of computer literacy • many different local languages spoken

Channels of communication

• Mobile phone – voice based • Radio • Internet is hardly used

Take into consideration

• Internet bandwidth is very small • No datacentres in Sahel countries • Very few local ICT businesses, experts,

semantic web experts in the local context...

Need for data sharing • Local news • NGOs inform the general public

• Regreening in Africa: examples of data

– spatial information – names of produces – Rainfall etc. – qualities of produces, sheabutter, seeds, honey

Knowledge must be relevant in the local context, created locally: not only consuming also producing !

More challenges

• Languages are unresourced-> no TTS or ASR • Who is going to develop voice web services,

apps, ontologies? • Who will provide maintain the service-

ecosystem?

Chicken and egg problem?

Start small, .....downscale!