Voiceitt Announces Project Ensemble to Advance Speech for the Disabled
Voiceitt, a provider of advanced speech recognition technology for people with non-standard speech, has launched a community engagement and development initiative called Project Ensemble.
Project Ensemble invites individuals with non-standard speech to record phrases and short sentences to help build a database of speech recognition language. This will expand the capabilities of the Voiceitt technology, increasing the power, flexibility and accuracy of the underlying speech algorithms.
The launch of Project Ensemble follows the successful 2021 integration of Voiceitt's speech recognition capabilities with Amazon's Alexa. This allows people with speech impairments to access and interact with Alexa using the Voiceitt mobile app. In addition, the Alexa integration empowers users to control smart home devices using voice commands independently.
Voiceitt's machine learning algorithms are designed to recognize and translate non-standard speech caused by degenerative diseases like ALS or Parkinson's; developmental disorders like cerebral palsy and Down syndrome; stroke; brain injury; and other conditions affecting speech.
"Our powerful technology uses artificial intelligence and machine learning to revolutionize support for people with non-standard speech. In fact, Voiceitt can recognize spoken words and phrases in any language, accent, or dialect," said Voiceitt Co-Founder and CEO Danny Weissberg, in a statement. "Project Ensemble will help us to dramatically improve the user experience. We'll be able to go far beyond Voiceitt's initial capabilities and make even a greater impact on people's lives with far less training, setup, and calibration.
"Users will no longer be restricted to saying pre-selected words. They'll be able to speak or execute voice commands spontaneously, helping them take a big step toward engaging in standard conversation," Weissberg added.
Voiceitt has partnered with dozens of organizations in North America and worldwide. Partners include the Karten Network, an aggregate of 90 centers leveraging novel technologies to support people with disabilities across the United Kingdom.
"If your speech is affected by a condition such as cerebral palsy, brain injury, or stroke, leading to difficulties in being understood by others, please consider joining Project Ensemble. Your voice can help make Voiceitt's speech recognition technology more accessible for more people," said Karten's project coordinator, Liz Howarth, in a statement.