WEBVTT

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- It\'s a mobile world with
calls, texts, and apps to help

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make our lives easier.

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But not everyone\'s benefiting...

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yet.

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Can mobile phone apps
be designed to help

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make a better world?

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This series challenges app
developers from around the

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world to visit communities who
are missing out, and then come

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up with an app that
could help...

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a Life App.

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- Yes, yes, yes, yes!

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- This week, Life Apps is in
Namibia, in southern Africa,

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where nine out of 10 have a
mobile phone, but where remote

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tribal communities still
struggle to benefit from

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modern technology.

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Modern life hasn\'t entirely
passed the Himba people by.

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Here in the remote North of
Namibia, they use mobile

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phones, though often
with difficulty.

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Apart from mobiles, the Himba\'s
way of life in the

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plains and hills of the
Kaokoland region is little

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changed by time.

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The Himba are fiercely proud
of their traditional way of

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life, but their remoteness
and independence also

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make it very tough.

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So could a Life App really
help this ancient tribe?

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800 kilometers south and a world
away from the Himba is

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Windhoek, Namibia\'s capital.

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And at a restaurant on the
outskirts of town, members of

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Windhoek\'s small tech community
are making plans.

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Dalton Ashikoto is an
entrepreneur who develops

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software applications
for mobile phones.

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He\'s always up for a challenge,
and there are few

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tougher than designing a Life
App to help the Himba.

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Dalton\'s enlisted Lameck
Amugongo, who\'s studying

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software engineering.

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- Mobile is the future, but
Android is leading.

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- It\'ll be the first time that
they\'ve met Himba people in

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their homeland in northwestern
Namibia.

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- We are going to travel
to Kaokoland.

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It\'s 800 kilometers from here.

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We\'re going to go there,
we have a week.

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We\'re going to meet the
Himba community.

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We\'re going to interview them
on what technology they use,

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and how they use them,
and to what extent.

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I don\'t know what I
got myself into.

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But I\'m up for the challenge.

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We\'re going to do it.

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(MUSIC PLAYING)

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- 12 hours drive from Windhoek
is Opuwo, the commercial

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center of Kaokoland.

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Kaokoland is the ancestral
home of the Himba people,

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often here in town for trade.

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Both men and women are
traditionally bare-chested,

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with women covering their skin
in a mixture of fat and ochre,

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symbolizing Earth and protecting
against the sun.

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- Oh, there you are.

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Yes, yes, yes...

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- Dalton and Lameck meet up with
Mbendura Remitubida, a

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volunteer youth activist who
will be their guide.

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- Nice to meet...

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- A quick tour of Opuwo reveals
how life is changing

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for the Himba, or Ovahimba
as they\'re often called.

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Most Himba men and women in the
town have mobile phones.

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- Oh, that might be a
Himba woman there.

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Let\'s go.

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- Yeah, let\'s go.

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- Lameck wants to know
how they can help.

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- and how we can use mobile
phones and other forms of

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technology to enhance or better

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their lives in Kaokoland.

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- So is that true, is that a
fact that most of the time

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it\'s just boys that go to school
and the girls don\'t?

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Just verify that for me.

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Is that correct?

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- Dalton can already
see possibilities

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for their Life App.

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Say, for example, if we had
something like some literacy

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in the phone, maybe teach
yourself English...

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is that something that
she thinks could

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be useful for her?

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So she would like... she would
accept the phone maybe to

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teach her a couple of things.

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- There\'s huge scope to help,
but they are still unclear on

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exactly how the Himba live and
how they use technology.

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So Dalton\'s team sets out
further from Opuwo to

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Otjomitjira village, over 200
kilometers along a dust road.

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Along the way, they have a
chance to find out why so many

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Himba are illiterate.

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- It\'s very quiet here, very
tranquil, peaceful.

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Different from the city life.

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Here, sounds are just
the sound of nature.

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Tomorrow we shall wake up
early, break of dawn.

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We\'ll speak to as many people...

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Dinner.

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- Dinner provides a chance
for Mbendura to share his

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experiences of herding
cattle, and how Himba

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children help out.

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- Oh, it\'s a beautiful day.

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- In this remote landscape,
maybe a Life App could help

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monitor the water in the oases,
vital for the Himba who

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live here with their cattle.

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And also for another tribe,
the Oveherero.

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But Dalton and Lameck don\'t know
if there\'s even a mobile

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phone signal here.

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Time to check.

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- Yes, yes, yes, yes!

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- Dalton\'s team want to know
more about how the Himba live

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here in the oasis.

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They soon realize the burden
of virtually all activities

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lies on the women.

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They care for the children, cook
for the family, help tend

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to the animals, and even
build the houses.

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- The reason why we\'re asking,
we\'re trying to figure out

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whether we can use mobile
technology to assist whatever

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the situation is.

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- And can the elders and the
people around here read their

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own language?

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Can they read their own name?

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- Yeah, yeah.

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- They can read their own?

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- But some, but not
like literacy.

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- Illiteracy, patchy phone
signals, no smartphones; it

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will be tough, but Dalton
has some ideas.

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- Couple of things that came to
my mind, but I don\'t think

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it\'s final, per se.

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One is the need for some
sort of tracking

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device in terms of cattle.

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One is the need to communicate
instantly with a

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whole bunch of people.

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But my biggest concern
is network coverage.

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- I feel that also is one
of my greatest fears.

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- Like I said, there is
something between the nodes,

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like little places that
you walk 200 meters.

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I mean, given the circumstances,
it\'s better

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than nothing.

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But we have to work
with what we have.

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We spoke to a couple of people
in terms of gathering

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information.

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I just feel at the moment we
probably haven\'t spoken to as

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many people as possible.

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I would say we have a lot to
learn from these people.

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Back in the city, we seem to be

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overtaken by material things.

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- So Dalton\'s team drive on to
the most remote Himba village

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they can find, Otjomitjira.

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It\'s just another five
kilometers away, but they can

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only drive at walking pace.

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In Otjomitjira, there are
more cattle than people.

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Maybe helping with cattle
is the best use for a

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mobile phone app.

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Maybe a Life App that
can track cattle is

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what the Himba need.

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- The application will be
doing, is it will be

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monitoring the movement of the
cattle throughout the forest.

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What you basically need to do
is just open the application

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or the system, and then you\'ll
be able to see all your cattle

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in the forest.

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- We\'ll try and design the
application in such a way that

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it will work with the
most basic phone.

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- But Dalton and Lameck feel
it\'s the hard working women

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who should have the final word.

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Time to discover if the women
can read text on a mobile.

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- Do the women from the Himba
community go to school?

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So can they even read, maybe in
Herero or Himba or English?

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So they only know to speak it,
but they can not read.

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- Yeah.

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- Maybe let\'s say you\'re
looking for

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your husband\'s number.

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How will you know?

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- Himba women may have to wait
days to find somebody who can

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read text messages for them.

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The challenges are even more
daunting than expected.

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Dalton and Lameck have to
develop a Life App that\'s both

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helpful and practical.

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They\'ll try and work something
out back in Opuwo, after a

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night of celebration.

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(SINGING)

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- To have an effective app, it\'s
all about communication

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and connectivity.

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We unfortunately have very
limited connectivity.

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So that\'s one of the challenges

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that we\'re faced with.

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We have a very short time to
come up with something usable

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and sustainable.

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So that\'s one of the challenges.

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And the other challenge that we
have is probably to find a

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champion to take on this app
once we\'ve developed it to

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channel it through to the
rest of the community.

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But I\'m an optimistic person.

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We\'ll see.

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- Back in town, Dalton and
Lameck are still thinking

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about a Life App to
track cattle.

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But it may not be as easy
as they hoped for.

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Dalton and Lameck are determined
to come up with

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their app while they\'re in the
North, so they can field test

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it while they\'re still here.

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- We have been up the whole
night, basically.

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Two things that we\'re playing
around from the data

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collection from the Himba people
were either developing

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an app, a tracking
app, for cattle.

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And the other one was the aspect
of an educational app.

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But we narrowed it down to some
sort of mathematical app

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where they can learn to count.

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As we developed that, we
realized, gee, they can learn

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how to count on this app.

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But then we realized, half
of them can\'t read.

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So we came up with something
that translates

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the digits to voice.

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- The team comes up with
an app that turns

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any text into speech.

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They\'ve developed a rough
prototype on Lameck\'s

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smartphone.

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But their idea is intended to
work on a simple 2G phone,

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just like those the Himba use.

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It\'s a brain wave.

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If illiteracy is the problem,
use an app to overcome

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illiteracy.

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- The Life App that we managed
to come up with

00:21:53.070 --> 00:21:54.779
is I Love My Voice.

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- So how does the prototype
app work?

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Step one: Copy the message that
you want to understand.

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Step two: Open the app.

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Step three: Paste the message
into the app.

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Step four: Press the voice
button to hear the message.

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(SMART PHONE APP)
Good morning...

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- I think the app can really
help the people, although the

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accent is not African.

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Maybe with time, it can be
improved to become African,

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and also include African
languages.

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- If somebody gets
an SMS, basically

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they look at the SMS.

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They press the little button,
and then the application reads

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an SMS for them.

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So I think that\'s simple,
but it would be a very

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useful app for them.

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So we\'re going to be going out
today and testing it and see

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how the reaction is from
the community.

00:23:03.820 --> 00:23:08.239
- The team drive to a nearby
Himba village, Ohorokaze, to

00:23:08.240 --> 00:23:10.980
test the I Love My
Voice Life App.

00:23:17.820 --> 00:23:23.129
Dalton and Lameck want to get
feedback from the Himba women.

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- We\'ve listened to some of
the problem that they\'re

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experiencing with SMS,
for example.

00:23:29.420 --> 00:23:32.909
So we\'re playing around with
some solution for mobile that

00:23:32.910 --> 00:23:36.489
enables, for example, the phone
to read the text back to

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them, especially when
they can\'t read.

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For example, if I
give her this...

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Say for example it\'s an SMS.

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Take it.

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You can have it.

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Let\'s say imagine it\'s
an SMS, that one.

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And so she can read it now, all
she has to do is to press

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that button there that
says the voice.

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We did not want to change
the way they live.

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We basically just wanted to come
up with a Life App that

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facilitates it.

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I feel absolutely good.

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I wish, and I hope, we will take
some more time and really

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just go back to the community
and give back again.

00:25:23.220 --> 00:25:26.609
(SINGING)

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- Dalton and Lameck are still
trying to perfect the I Love

00:25:29.650 --> 00:25:32.479
My Voice app.

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They want to find a way
of translating Himba

00:25:34.660 --> 00:25:37.919
voices back into text.

00:25:37.920 --> 00:25:40.209
And they\'re still looking
for a champion to

00:25:40.210 --> 00:25:43.159
develop their ideas.

00:25:43.160 --> 00:25:46.139
Their time with the Himba is
evidence that technology in

00:25:46.140 --> 00:25:48.689
the right hands can enhance
even the most

00:25:48.690 --> 00:25:51.619
traditional way of life.

00:25:51.620 --> 00:25:52.870
(SINGING)