The Project

Senegal’s ICT Resource Centre is developing ICT applications that address the needs of village communities. This research and development focuses on new human-machine interfaces that allow illiterate populations to access information using voice or graphic icons on portable telephones and personal digital assistants (PDAs). It is also an opportunity for students in the Department of Mathematics and Computer Science at Cheikh Anta Diop University to participate in research into wireless technologies and shareware, thereby gaining skills and experience that will help to popularize these tools for development projects in Senegal.

 

How do you bring the benefits ofinformation and communication technology to people who can’t read or write? This is a critical question, because excluding such people from the digital economy serves to further marginalize them. Using wireless technologies and shareware, the ICT Resource Centre project is bringing new services to poor, largely illiterate populations through standalone applications that run on PDAs and mobile telephones. It is also building ICT research and development capacity among university students and faculty.

 

The Context
ICTs can help the marginalized and disadvantaged gain access to resources for community and personal development, but personal computers and commercial software can be prohibitively expensive, and in rural areas both the electrical supply and fixed-line connectivity are often unreliable. In Senegal, lower-cost wireless technologies—especially cellular telephones—running royalty-free shareware have the potential to overcome these barriers, but only when applications are tailored to the specific needs of a largely illiterate rural population.

 

The ICT Resource Centre and the university students participating in the project are gaining expertise in creating local solutions to local problems using wireless technologies and shareware. This expertise will have impact beyond the project itself—students and faculty in Cheikh Anta Diop University’s Department of Mathematics and Computer Science will benefit from improved equipment and software, Internet access for distance learning, and the opportunity to work closely with NGOs and local village communities, as well as with universities and research centres in Québec.