Google on Monday released a suite of text-based apps, dubbed Google SMS, intended to provide people in Africa with easier access to information on a variety of topics like health and agriculture, weather, sports, and more.
Africa has the world’s highest mobile phone growth rate, and the average citizen is more likely to have access to a cell phone than an Internet-connected PC. As a result, Google is focused on delivering information one might find on an average Google.com search via mobile phones.
The suite includes Google Trader, a text-based “marketplace” app that helps buyers and sellers find each other. Google SMS Tips, meanwhile, will answer questions that users pose via text. Need to know how to preserve crops or want basic sexual health information? Send a text.
“You enter a free form text query, and Google’s algorithms restructure the query to identify keywords, search a database to identify relevant answers, and return the most relevant answer,” Google wrote in a blog post.
The project was made possible through a Google partnership with the Grameen Foundation, MTN Uganda, and several local organizations.
“We worked closely together as part of Grameen Foundation’s Application Laboratory to understand information needs and gaps, develop locally relevant and actionable content, rapidly test prototypes, and conduct multi-month pilots with the people who will eventually use the applications have truly been a global effort, and created with Ugandans, for Ugandans,” Google said.
Google has more information about the effort available in this YouTube video.
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