By Emmanuel Elebeke

In recognition of the astronomou s growth of ICT in Africa, Google has launched its first voice recognition search technology for Africa, as part of a long_term bid to extend its influence in the continent.

The internet search  company said it hopes to encourage more Africans to get online. Africa makes  up 14% of the world’s population but contributes  only 5% of world’s  Internet users.

This latest launch, the search giant disclosed will form  part of its  mission to nudge users onto its sites such as Gmail, Maps and Chat, adding that it is aiming to capitalise on the widespread use of mobile technology, which has already given millions of people in Africa access to a whole range of services and which outnumbers desktop computers tenfold, smartphone owners in South Africa will now be able to enter a voice command in Afrikaans and Zulu which will return written search results via Google’s search engine.

Google is drawing on the Africa’s myriad languages, offering a service in 24 of them using computer and human translators to ensure there is sufficient content on the Internet to make searches in such languages worthwhile, by further encouraging more locals to enter their own content to boost the material available in each language.

Etienne Barnard, a linguist expert from North West University, who has helped to build a database of one million recognisable words for each language by finding volunteers to ask common questions said ‘We see speech technology as the way to cross the digital divide.”

Other experts believe that like Baraza, much of what Google will become known for in Africa will be alien to its fans elsewhere, and 90 % will be SMS and voice_based.

On reaping the mutual benefits for both Google and the African continent, the experts are of the view that Africa needs Google and in the same way, Google needs Africa because it’s going to push it to work out all kinds of new solutions, which is what it actually does best.