Voiceitt, a leader in commercial speech recognition for atypical speech, announced today that people with speech impairments will be able to use the Voiceitt mobile app to access and interact with Amazon’s Alexa.
Voiceitt was founded with the mission to apply its machine learning and speech recognition technologies to help people with speech disabilities relating to stroke, degenerative disease, or developmental disorders communicate and be understood. Supported by $15M in government grants, corporate prize competitions and equity investment, Voiceitt built its speech recognition algorithms and expansive voice database by learning from people with atypical speech.
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Leveraging the growing popularity of voice services and smart speakers, Voiceitt recognized the opportunity to expand its technology offering to facilitate not only in-person communication but also interaction with voice activated and controlled devices.
“We’re excited to work with Amazon to bring the benefits of voice technologies to a broad segment of customers who, until now, may not have been able to enjoy these products,” said Danny Weissberg, CEO and co-founder of Voiceitt. “Voice technologies are increasingly mainstream, and this Alexa integration is testament to the growing awareness among major technology players of the importance of ensuring these technologies address the diverse needs and preferences of their customers, including people whose voices deviate from standard speech. Integration of Voiceitt’s speech recognition with a powerful service like Alexa further demonstrates Voiceitt’s value proposition in a rapidly expanding industry, and of our vision – to make speech recognition accessible to everyone.”
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“We’re incredibly excited to work with Voiceitt to make Alexa accessible to even more people,” said Peter Korn, Director of Accessibility at Amazon Lab126. “We share the company’s vision to help people with speech impairments live more independently through voice. We were delighted to support them through an Alexa Fund investment and now through an Alexa integration via their mobile app.”
The announcement follows a successful pilot with Inglis House, a long-term care wheelchair community for people with physical disabilities. In the pilot, Voiceitt worked closely with Inglis’ Assistive Technology Team to help participants with cerebral palsy and atypical speech use Voiceitt and Alexa to perform daily tasks, such as controlling channels on their TVs or playing music, independently. For people with disabilities impacting motor control, the ability to navigate their environment and control smart devices by voice, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic, can decrease reliance on human caregiver support, helping to maintain social distancing practices while also opening up possibilities for more independent living.
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