Dukawalla: Voice Interfaces for Small Businesses in Africa

TL;DR

Dukawalla is a voice-based AI assistant designed to help small business owners in Africa access data insights easily, addressing the unique needs of mobile, time-constrained users in a developing country context.

Contribution

This paper introduces Dukawalla, a novel voice interface leveraging generative AI to facilitate data-driven decision making for African SMBs, tailored to their workflows.

Findings

Improved decision-making efficiency for SMB owners.

Positive user feedback on voice interface usability.

Enhanced data accessibility through natural language interaction.

Abstract

Small and medium sized businesses often struggle with data driven decision making do to a lack of advanced analytics tools, especially in African countries where they make up a majority of the workforce. Though many tools exist they are not designed to fit into the ways of working of SMB workers who are mobile first, have limited time to learn new workflows, and for whom social and business are tightly coupled. To address this, the Dukawalla prototype was created. This intelligent assistant bridges the gap between raw business data, and actionable insights by leveraging voice interaction and the power of generative AI. Dukawalla provides an intuitive way for business owners to interact with their data, aiding in informed decision making. This paper examines Dukawalla's deployment across SMBs in Nairobi, focusing on their experiences using this voice based assistant to streamline data collection and provide business insights