Kill Text to Kill the Digital Divide: A Journey out of Inequality for Uganda
As civic technology explodes across the world, engulfing citizens with new platforms and better designed services, we here in Uganda, continue to scratch our heads about how we can reach our targets groups: the consistently marginalized and under-resourced groups who stand to benefit the most. With our recent forays into civic technology, we’re left asking “how do we ensure that using technology will not perpetuate the existent inequalities in society due to the current digital divide?”. What good is open data or SMS feedback systems when people can’t read or access the internet?
Access to information continues to be a challenge, not only in rural areas but also urban areas, further exacerbated by migration trends. This is puzzling given the rising rates of mobile penetration. According to the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC), a total of 123,889 new mobile subscribers were registered by mid 2016, bringing the total mobile phone subscriptions to 22,034,837 or somewhere between 50–55% penetration rate. In addition to this climb in mobile penetration, the UCC also reported that the number of internet subscribers and internet users grew respectively by 30.2% and 19.6% resulting in a 42.5% internet penetration as of June 2016. However, connectivity remains a challenge due to the high internet tariffs and poor coverage in the rural areas.
What truly complicates matter is low literacy rates, coupled with a very high diversity in languages spoken throughout the country. Statistics show that only 73% of Ugandans can read and write. According to the Demographic and Health Survey 2011, only 64% of women could read at least part of a sentence. Given these conditions, we need a new way to reach out to the under-represented populations scattered across the country.
Is it time we do away with text?
As the “next billion” come online, companies have been rushing to develop technologies that work for this new demographic. Low-resource, low-literacy populations are embracing cheaper technology and falling internet tariffs in up and coming countries such as India, Indonesia and Brazil.
A recent publication in the Wall Street Journal titled “The End of Typing: The Next Billion Mobile Users Will Rely on Video and Voice” got us thinking about what this means for civic technology. The article discusses apps such as SHAREit and MX player, popular in emerging markets that focus on offline storage of content and high performance on low-speed connections. While 10 years ago, people came online to send/receive emails, they now do so to watch videos and join social media.
It’s been difficult to avoid the debates around “artificial intelligence” (AI), but as more technology gets churned out everyday, we can now interact more conversationally with our devices. With the introduction of Intelligent Personal Assistant (IPA), our mobile phones can now help us navigate the internet, plan our days and perform tasks quickly and efficiently. Think Siri by Apple, Bixby by Samsung or Google’s voice assistant. These IPA use natural language to create a more human experience.
WhatsApp Videos Calls and Audios, Facebook Live, Twitter’s Periscope and YouTube have given people a way to share and express themselves without having to type out a myriad of words. We use emojis daily to express our innermost emotions. We can press buttons to rate services at airports and shops. Are we truly entering a post-text future? After all, language has existed far longer than writing and oral tradition has dominated Ugandan culture until quite recently.
What’s next for Uganda?
Civic technology in East Africa is at an exciting cross roads to start with this future in mind. Still nascent in this region, we have the opportunity to develop platforms that take all the realities of the digital divide into account to create something truly inclusive. Civic technology can help break down traditional barriers and detrimental divides created by disparities in income, education and networks.
There is great potential and some experimenting in using technologies such as Automated/Interactive Voice Response (IVR), speech recognition, community radios, video and audio messaging, and artificial intelligence to build platforms and services that cater to the next billion and work towards closing the digital divide.
For example, Farm Radio International in Uganda collaborates with partner radio stations and using an IVR system, provides farmers with voice content on demand, collects audience feedback, and conducts listener surveys. In Somaliland, Ila Dhageyso utilized an IVR system to connect citizens with government officials using a discussion forum accessible online and through mobile phones.
Another interesting use case is low-cost community radios. RootIO, an open-source toolkit allows users to broadcast using just a smartphone and a transmitter. Using all materials that can be sourced locally, as mall transmitter is built into a bucket with a fan, a charge-controller and a smartphone, which is then connected to an antenna and a solar panel. All content produced is hosted in the cloud. Listeners wanting to participate in the radio show’s discussions would call in, have their calls dropped and then have the computer call them back. This way, callers don’t pay to listen to the programming. RootIO is adding more stations here in Uganda!
Recently, the UN Pulse Lab in Kampala has been working with the Government of Uganda and other development partners to get a pulse on public opinion through a toolkit that makes public radio broadcasts machine-readable through the use of speech recognition technology and translation tools that transform radio content into text. Through a better understanding of public opinion, the program hopes to bridge the gaps between policy and implementation of development programmes in the country. The ambition is to develop a fully automated system whereby data flow from the radio broadcast to the dashboard takes only 1 day.
As you can see, we don’t have many excuses left for us to keep developing solely SMS or web-based platforms that we know are not inclusive. Let’s keep leapfrogging. Let’s build what works locally, for a global future.
Each time individuals take civic action with digital tools — texting donations, sharing videos, mapping information on open source platforms for others to use, snapping and sharing photos of protests or movements — we invent digital civil society
— Lucy Bernholz
Written by Neema Iyer and Pius Enywaru
