Open Institute staff testing the user interface design of the Verboice system
The iLab Southeast Asia approach is a unique blend of the social and technological development spheres, which have traditionally worked on problem solving in isolation from each other. By working both in the field with users and inside the iLab with other developers, we bridge the gap between what we know is possible and what actually works in the real world. This unique “social-technical” approach fosters collaborative engineering practices, multidisciplinary dialogue, cross-sector partnerships and entrepreneurial innovation serving the public good.
Verboice (verboice.instedd.org/) is a flexible open-source tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and run projects that interact via voice, allowing your users to listen and record messages in their own language and dialect or answer questions with a phone keypad. Verboice projects can start small and scale up, making it possible to improve lives even in communities previously closed off by literacy and technological barriers.
InSTEDD iLab Southeast Asia partnered with the Open Institute, and the Women’s Media Centre to improve their outreach services which focus on women’s health, gender-based violence, and democracy. The project is to assist the Women’s Media Centre and Open Institute in implementing a series of mobile-based information telephone hotlines, scheduled advice services and question boxes for women that complement and extend their current work. Through a customized version of Verboice, women and children will be able to access on demand health information services, therefore increasing their awareness and understanding of health issues they may be at risk for.
Open Institute staff testing the user interface design of the Verboice system
The iLab Southeast Asia approach is a unique blend of the social and technological development spheres, which have traditionally worked on problem solving in isolation from each other. By working both in the field with users and inside the iLab with other developers, we bridge the gap between what we know is possible and what actually works in the real world. This unique “social-technical” approach fosters collaborative engineering practices, multidisciplinary dialogue, cross-sector partnerships and entrepreneurial innovation serving the public good.
Verboice (verboice.instedd.org/) is a flexible open-source tool that makes it easy for anyone to create and run projects that interact via voice, allowing your users to listen and record messages in their own language and dialect or answer questions with a phone keypad. Verboice projects can start small and scale up, making it possible to improve lives even in communities previously closed off by literacy and technological barriers.
InSTEDD iLab Southeast Asia partnered with the Open Institute, and the Women’s Media Centre to improve their outreach services which focus on women’s health, gender-based violence, and democracy. The project is to assist the Women’s Media Centre and Open Institute in implementing a series of mobile-based information telephone hotlines, scheduled advice services and question boxes for women that complement and extend their current work. Through a customized version of Verboice, women and children will be able to access on demand health information services, therefore increasing their awareness and understanding of health issues they may be at risk for.