Voice-based services for Radio Sikidolo in Mali

Adama Tessougué is a journalist at Radio Sikidolo in Konobougou, a small village about 150 km east of Bamako in a rural region of Mali. Adama’s voice is famous  as he informs and entertains at least 50.000 listeners in the 39 surrounding villages every day. “Informer sans déformer” which means "to inform without deforming", is written on the walls of the narrow corridor where we meet Adama and his colleagues.

“Forget the Web or the Mobile, Radio is the Biggest Media in Africa”, Mawuna Remarque KOUTONIN, writes in his blog in Silicon Africa. “The reason is simple, most people in Africa are illiterate. They don’t know how to read and write. There is an additional group of people who are literate or semi-literate but don’t like to write or read…” The actual Web must therefore be expanded, to allow radio and simple mobile phone (still remember your first nokia, more then a decade ago? ) as its voice interfaces. The Web must also support more local languages, that are spoken by so many people in Africa.

At radio Sikidolo there is no fixed internet connection.  Adama Tessougue can check his email using a mobile internet connection, but this is very expensive, - he pays a fee per minute online - so he accesses the web only now and then. Another hurdle for people in Konobougou to use the Web: high costs.
Adama works with fifty independent citizen journalists, reporting news from the surrounding villages. They collect announcements and report the local breaking news : weddings, funerals, parties, accidents, lost cows and goats.  These voice microblogs are sent to the radio by mobile.

We visit Radio Sikidolo to talk with Adama about a new voice-based micro-blogging service, that has recently been built for radio stations in Mali, named Foroba Blon. The voice-interface of this mobile service is in Bambara or Bomu language, allowing users to communicate with the system in their own local language.The Foroba Blon voice blogger was developed by a team from Web Foundation, VU University Amsterdam, North-West University, South Africa andthe Malian NGO Sahel Eco, together with several radio stations in Mali, including ORTM Ségou and Radio Moutian in Tominian. 

Some news items broadcast by Sikidolo are of interest to regional or national news providers. If others want to access news from radio Sikidolo, they can do so using Foroba Blon. Thus by bringing the micro-blogging service online, and allowing people to share voice-based resources, this may eventually become a Web of African Radios.