Africa remains the cradle of innovation. It continuously finds new approaches to problems that may appear uniquely African, only to discover that the rest of the world has similar issues. That’s certainly the case with the Open G, an African voice-activated samrtphone.
When Ivory Coast’s Alain Capo-Chichi realised how his parents were struggling to communicate and transfer cash using a typical phone — because they simply could not understand the English-based tech and apps — an idea was born. He created Open G, a phone that one simply speaks to.
Only Open Gs know
“With this super phone, the user skips the writing and reading stages and speaks directly on the phone to get appropriate answers to the requests they have,” said Capo-Chichi in a report by Mail & Guardian.
It opened up a new world for his parents and millions of Africans who struggle to read and write.
Open G is the first Ivorian-made smartphone and the first smartphone that primarily works through voice commands in a variety of languages. The smartphone, primarily aimed at users who can’t read or write, understands voice commands in 50 African languages including sixteen Ivorian languages. The phone understands Kiswahili, Yoruba, Igbo, Lingala, Bété, Dioula, and Senoufo, and more.
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Open G uses KONE, an artificial intelligence (AI) driven voice assistant similar to Apple’s Siri and Amazon’s Alexa, to process commands.
“People can use their smartphones much more easily by simply speaking to them,” said Capo-Chichi in a Reuters report.
The multilingual smartphone allows users to perform a range of functions ranging from sending messages to financial transactions like sending money. How well it does those things is something Stuff has yet to determine. Pure voice control of a device, let alone control in multiple languages, has always been a major obstacle for tech companies.
Overcoming that obstacle would be a step in the right direction, however. Literacy in English-based technologies remains an even larger tech barrier on the African continent. It often limits what those who have little to no reading or writing skills can do with their tech. Hopefully this project will change that.
Open G joins a range of African-made smartphones including Mara Phones, SICO, and ITF phones.
Source: Mail &Guardian, Technext, Reuters