VillageLink AI — Bringing Tswana AI to Makuta via WhatsApp

VillageLink AI — Bringing Tswana AI to Makuta via WhatsApp An AI voice & chat app for community information in Botswana’s Makuta Village Makuta is a small village in the Central District of Botswana located about 70 km northwest of Francistown, along the road to Tutume. It had ~907 residents in the 2022 census, and like many rural communities, access to information is patchy — especially when literacy, data costs, and low-end phones are real constraints. 🧠 The Problem In Makuta and surrounding areas: Many people speak Setswana (Tswana) more fluently than English. A significant portion can’t easily read or write complex text. WhatsApp is the communication platform everyone already uses. Data costs are high and unreliable connectivity is common. Traditional news channels and apps don’t serve this reality — most tools assume: keyboards stable Internet English proficiency That’s not Makuta. So I built something for us. 🛠️ What I Built — VillageLink AI VillageLink AI is a WhatsApp-powered A