In a continent where literacy remains a significant issue, the company hopes it will encourage more people to get online in a way that suits them and has pledged to deliver search results in audio in the not too distant future.
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"We see speech technology as the way to cross the digital divide," he said. "It's not realistic to expect someone in a far corner of the Limpopo to use web technology but boy they can talk."
His team took the new offering to rural areas where many people had never heard of Google and the mixed response they received reflected a general mistrust of technology in African communities, he said.
"You have a group of people who are horrified - they see speech as a human thing and don't want to talk to a machine," he said. "Then you have a group who are fascinated. They're proud of their language and when a phone responds to them in it, it means they're taking ownership."
The latest launch forms part of Google's mission to nudge more Africans online and onto its sites such as Gmail, Maps and Chat. At present, Africans make up 14 per cent of the world's population but only five per cent of its Internet users.
Key to Google's mission is to capitalise on the widespread use of mobile phones, which outnumber desktop computers tenfold.
Mobile technology has already given millions of people in Kenya access to banking, and Google recently won a Mobile World Congress award for an "SMS tips" service, which answers users' texted questions about health or agricultural issues.
Harnessing Africa's myriad languages is also vital - it already offers a service in 24 of them, but is now seeking to encourage locals to enter their own content to boost the material available in each.
Google Baraza is one of the flagship projects it is using to make itself more relevant. Users can send in questions such as "Where can I buy a reasonably priced camera in Accra?" and "What is the best university in Nigeria?" and other users get points for providing helpful answers.
But there are still obstacles to getting Africa online. Google's cheapest Android phone in South Africa costs R1,399 (£127), locking out the majority of potential users, and even in big cities, internet access is still unreliable.
The average Internet cafe modem struggles to load Gmail and Streetmap, while cataloguing South Africa in time for the World Cup, is yet to make a dent in some of the continent's most populous townships.
Richard Mulholland, a motivational speaker for businesses and founder of South Africa's Entrepreneur magazine, said 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.
"In many areas, it will find it's providing the platform to the content creation and the community itself comes up with the algorithm," he said.
"For a local, start-up company, that would be impossible but that's why a brand like Google works."
The company is still to make a profit in the region and most of the services it offers are free.
But Denis Gikunda, Google's localisation manager for African languages, said it was happy to play the long game since, once Africa's massive audience is engaged, there's the potential for considerable profit through relevant advertising.
"In order for us to succeed in Africa from a business point of view, we need people to be using the Internet and using it successfully," he said. "It's a big commitment but then Google is a company that can make that commitment."
Mr Mulholland believes that Google will reap other rewards from its African adventure too.
"Africa needs Google but 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," he said.
Source:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/google/8113690/Google-launches-first-African-voice-recognition-technology.html
