Avallain Africa Uses Acapela Voices
Acapela Group is providing the voices for a-ACADEMY, a platform designed by Avallain to give children in Kenya access to educational interactive content.
Avallain Africa, a non-profit organization created by Avallain, a company that specializes in education technology and digital publishing, developed the a-ACADEMY program, offering highly interactive educational content. It uses Acapela text-to-speech voices to provide English audio input.
"We designed a-ACADEMY with the idea of offering high-quality digital learning to children who need it most. We understand how important digital learning is in Kenya, and we needed to create a product that filled a gap and that was of the highest quality. We needed good audio in different voices with a British accent that could help the children improve their language skills, as we never want to compromise on quality. Creating our voice files with Acapela Box was easy, and it was also easy to integrate in our authoring tool. The high-quality audios have certainly enriched a-ACADEMY and fit perfectly well into our pedagogical strategy and vision," said Miriam Ruiz, executive director of the Avallain Foundation, in a statement.
Avallain is using Acapela's Box, an online service that allows users to create voice samples in any of 34 languages, in a wide range of voices. a-ACADEMY is currently using Acapela's British English voices to provide accurate pronunciation for English lessons.
Listen to 'a-Academy' audio samples, produced with acapela-box.com:
https://soundcloud.com/acapelagroup/digital-learning-avallain-a-academy-programme-voice-sample-2
https://soundcloud.com/acapelagroup/digital-learning-avallain-a-academy-programme-voice-sample
With Acapela Box, text input can be modified and fine-tuned. Once the message is ready, voice files can be generated in MP3 or Wav format (8 or 22 kHz, a-law or µ-law).
"Speech technology is widely used in education to enhance interactivity and engagement, specifically in language learning, as in Avallain's platform. We are very proud to be part of this innovative platform that uses technology to better serve humanity' said Lars-Erik Larsson, CEO of Acapela Group, in a statement.
a-ACADEMY has already reached 10,000 children, but Avallain is confident half a million African youngsters could benefit. a-ACADEMY is suited to primary schools and is free of charge.