Big Boost for Hearing Impaired Students
Pro-Bono News, 6 December 2011
Big Boost for Hearing Impaired Students
People with hearing impairments could benefit greatly from a large federal government investment in technology that converts live speech into text on tablets or laptops in seconds.
Sydney based technology company, Ai-Media, received $1.7 million to help commercialise its Ai-Live technology, which delivers real time speech captioning to laptops, tablets, iPads and other web-enabled devices.
Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Carers, Senator the Hon Jan McLucas said, "With this Australian Government grant, Ai-Live could become part of any classroom."
Ai-Live has already proved effective in pilot studies in New South Wales and Victorian schools and has now received an Australian Government grant to help commercialise the system.
Innovation Minister Senator Kim Carr said the fast, accurate speech-to-text technology could make a crucial difference in schools and workplaces for people with hearing difficulties.
"The technology has the potential to dramatically improve the quality of life and opportunities for many Australians with hearing impairments."
Ai-Live allows quick delivery of accurate text by relaying audio to a remote trained operator who re-speaks, with punctuation, into special speech recognition software.
To read the full story online, visit:
http://www.probonoaustralia.com.au/news/2011/12/big-boost-hearing-impaired-students
