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Monday, 25 October 2010

Knowledge sharing across Africa with Baraza beta

Posted on 04:25 by Unknown
En Français

One of the challenges for the Internet in Africa is that there is a lack of local content online. To help users in Africa enrich and shape the content about Africa, our engineers have created Google Baraza. Baraza, which means “taskforce” or “council” in Swahili, allows people in countries across Africa to share knowledge with each other by asking questions and posting answers.

A large number of questions that are typed into Google’s search engine by users are written as if they were talking to their friends. For example, “How can I write a movie script for Nollywood?” or “How does the stock exchange operate in Ghana?” or “What is the recipe for bitter leaf soup?” or “What is the best company for car insurance in Nairobi?” Unfortunately, many of these questions do not have good search results - the information is not online or it may be inaccurate. Many users have dozens of similar questions every day, but spend a lot of time looking for the answers.

A few weeks ago, we opened up Google Baraza to a select group of users in Africa to test the new service. Since then, we’ve seen thousands of visits to the site, and tens of thousands of questions and answers submitted from almost every country in Sub Saharan Africa.

We’re honored to work with people from across the continent who are trying out the service, and sharing knowledge in their areas of expertise, including Ghanaian business leader Yofi Grant, actor Kevin Maina from the Makmende team, Lagos radio DJ Diplomatic OPJ, health expert Prof. Rina Swart of South Africa, and TV host Lebo Mzwimbi (and that’s just to name a few)!

Google Baraza is designed specifically for users in Africa to make it easy to get answers to their questions. The product is available in English and French.



We are really excited about this service. To learn more, please visit google.com/baraza/en/

Answer a question on your favorite topic (e.g., local businesses, economics)
or Ask a question that you have been wondering about.

Posted by Mohamed Taha, Software Engineer and Aneto Okonkwo, Product Manager

====

Partage des connaissances en Afrique avec Baraza beta

L’un des défis d’Internet en Afrique est le manque de contenu local en ligne. Pour aider les utilisateurs en Afrique à enrichir et mettre en forme les contenus sur l’Afrique, nos ingénieurs ont créé Google Baraza. Baraza, qui signifie « force de travail » ou « conseil » en swahili, permet à des internautes africains de partager leurs connaissances via des questions-réponses.

Un grand nombre de questions posées via le moteur de recherche Google sont libellées en
langage « parlé ». Par exemple, « Comment danser en Coupé-Décalé ? », « Comment fonctionne
la bourse régionale BRVM ? », « Quelle est la recette du poulet Yassa ?” ou encore « Quelle est la meilleure compagnie d’assurance auto à Douala ? ». Malheureusement, nombre de ces questions
n’obtiennent pas de réponses satisfaisantes : l’information recherchée n’est pas en ligne ou est
inexacte. De nombreux internautes ont des dizaines de questions similaires tous les jours, mais
passent énormément de temps à chercher des réponses.

Il y a quelques semaines, nous avons lancé Google Baraza pour sélectionner un groupe d’internautes en Afrique qui doit tester le nouveau service. Depuis, le site a été visité des milliers de fois, et des dizaines de milliers de questions-réponses ont été soumises, en provenance de la quasi-totalité des pays d’Afrique sub-saharienne.

Nous sommes fiers de travailler avec des internautes qui testent notre service et partagent leurs connaissances dans leur domaine de compétence, dont l’homme d’affaires Meïssa Déguène Ngom, l’artiste Paul Sika, l’entrepreneur et cofondateur de Kerawa.com, Fritz Ekwoge, pour n’en citer que quelques-uns!

Google Baraza est spécialement conçu pour les internautes en Afrique, pour qu’ils leur soit plus facile de trouver une réponse à leurs questions. Le produit est disponible en anglais et en français.



Nous sommes ravis de ce service. Pour en savoir plus, consultez le site google.com/baraza/fr/

Répondez à une question dans votre domaine d’expertise (par exemple, échanges locaux, économie) ou posez une question sur un sujet qui vous préoccupe.

Poste par Mohamed Taha, ingénieur logiciel, et Aneto Okonkwo, directeur produit
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