VoiceICT4D Set Sail on its Diffusion Voyage

Knowledge Sharing of Voice-enabled ICT for Disaster Management (VoiceICT4D) sets off to spread the message that “voice-based interfaces can foster emergency communication, especially in developing countries, by leaps and bounds, opposed to traditional keypad entry data communication systems”. Our gratitude to the Humanitarian Innovation Fund for the grant that will support this diffusion activity.

Voice-enabled ICTs are an inclusive solution in developing countries; especially, where there are less digizens (Digital Citizens). Studies have shown that voice communication precede all other telecommunications applications by a large margin. Therefore, community-based humanitarian organizations should  leverage voice telecommunication applications to support their disaster communication needs. For example, mobile phones can serve a dual purpose as a tool that is integrated in to the daily lives and one that can be used for crisis information exchange. This dual purpose utility solves the sustainability part of the problem compared to specialized emergency communications.

The recently concluded pilot study to enable Interactive Voice Response (IVR) systems for emergency data exchange revealed several key lessons. Some of them were on usability aspects and the others were on system integration and operationalization aspects. The innovation sought to bridge communication between Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) members and their incident management hub. Voice-enabled ICTs remove the need for computer skills and has no bounds on languages. The CERT members found the solution quite easy to use and agreed that it was a useful solution.

The main goal of VoiceICT4D is to increasing awareness and influence emergency communication practitioners and researchers to invest in resources and developments that improve such workable ICTs to benefit developing nations.

Nuwan Waidyanatha – LIRNEasia