An interactive voice service system that converts text to speech is offering the blind and the illiterate an opportunity to use computers.

According to the managing director of Technobyte, Mr Mucemi Gakuru, the interactive voice service involves selecting the numbers on the key pad of one's handset or computer to obtain the desired information.

The system is already being used to help farmers in Kiambu obtain critical information about agriculture by just dialling the number for the National Agriculture Information Service (NAFIS).

Technobyte developed the interactive service for NAFIS and has approached the Kenya Society for the Blind to develop a similar system for its members.

Although many Private Automatic Branch Exchanges (PABXs) offer interactive voice services, the NAFIS one is run by a Text-to-Speech engine that picks typed text from a computer and speaks it loudly in either Kiswahili or English.

The text -to- speech engine enables extension officers in the field to update their work through the Internet and thus provide farmer's with information relevant to their specific localities.

Mr Gakuru said the technology will opens up whole range of opportunities for companies to provide ready information, allowing them to reach over the 12 million phone subscribers in Kenya.

To achieve this, he says, organizations would need to have a voice site in addition to a website. A voice-site is an information portal just like the website, but is accessed through the phone as opposed to websites which are accessed through computers.

Information is presented through speech and navigation done by the phone's keypad or through voice navigation.

NAFIS is the first voice-site in Kenya and the only farmer's service of its kind in Africa. The voice-site is hosted by Popote Wireless.

According to Gakuru, setting up voice-sites requires good speech synthesis systems that produce natural speech when fed with typed text.