Koumba

Koumba is a Wolof voice agent that tells people in Dakar which bus to take. Many bus riders in Dakar speak Wolof and cannot read. Information about Tata AFTU minibuses and Dakar Dem Dikk buses is scattered and rarely in Wolof, so people ask strangers at the stop. With Koumba, you tap the mic and ask in Wolof ("Maa ngi Wakaam, dama bëgga dem Médina"). Koumba transcribes the speech, finds the trip on the real bus network (direct line or up to two transfers), shows trip cards in each operator's colors, and answers out loud in Wolof. When a place name is ambiguous, it asks the question out loud and the rider can answer by voice, so nobody has to read. It can also check a photo of a bus ("Is this my bus?"). Before the hackathon, I only had a public dataset of Dakar bus lines (TIJAANI/dakar-bus-network). Everything else (agent, route engine, voice pipeline, app and 281 tests) was built during the event. Live demo: https://cheikhniang159--koumba-web-web.us-east.modal.run