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Makerthon in Kenya

Twenty makers and four people with speech impairments worked together as co-designers not as separate groups of builders and testers. The result was assistive technology shaped by the people who actually need it.

Building Voice Technology That Works: CDLI ASR Devices Makerthon

Over four days, twenty makers and four users with speech impairments worked together as co-designers not as separate groups of builders and testers. The result was assistive technology shaped by the people who actually need it.

The Centre for Digital Language Inclusion launches the first ever large scale African Impaired Speech Dataset Collection

Press Release

GDI Hub’s Centre for Digital Language Inclusion (CDLI) co-creation sesison

As part of this journey, a co-creation workshop, hosted at Kenya Institute of Special Education (KISE), brought together participants, mentors, and facilitators for a full day of collaboration on inclusive Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) solutions.

Kenya innovators join for the latest Centre for Digital Language Inclusion workshops

The Centre for Digital and Language Inclusion (CDLI) has finalised the second phase of its groundbreaking initiative to develop inclusive Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems for individuals with non-standard or impaired speech in African languages. This effort aims to close the digital divide for people with speech impairments and marks a major milestone following a successful pilot in Ghana.

Building Inclusive Speech Recognition for All in Kenya

In today’s digital world, voice technology has become a powerful tool for communication, accessibility, and convenience. From virtual assistants to voice-enabled applications, speaking to devices is now second nature for many.

Google, University of Ghana and GDI Hub to Collaborate

The University of Ghana, Google Research Africa, and UCL’s Global Disability Innovation Hub (GDI Hub) are collaborating on "tɛkyerɛma pa" ("Good Tongue"), an AI-based initiative aimed at improving communication for individuals with non-standard speech patterns. This project focuses on improving AI-powered speech recognition technology for five major Ghanaian languages, marking a significant step in making communication more inclusive for all.

Empowering People with Non-Typical Speech in Kenya

GDI Hub’s Centre for Digital Language Inclusion (CDLI) is running an innovation sprint in Kenya

Inclusive Speech Kenya

Accra, Ghana: Using the newly built Akan and Ga ASR models, CDLI and GDI Hub host an inclusive innovation hackathon open to university students across Ghana. From over 150 applicants, 16 teams from across the country progressed to the ideation sprint, mentored by CDLI and University of Ghana and five group finalists presented live to an audience of more than 400 in Accra, including representatives from government, academic institutions and innovators. All teams were provided mentoring to build and demonstrate prototype apps using AI and the language models we had provided. Each team included a person living with speech impairment. Each team utilized local knowledge, skills, experiences and ideas to build solutions for Ghanaians, by Ghanaians. The event, funded by CDLI Hub’s AT2030 programme, demonstrates how local talent can leverage CDLI’s open-source tools for real-world solutions, given the opportunity.

Ghana Pilot Data Collection

Accra, Ghana: CDLI’s first field deployment. Prof. Cathy Holloway and Dr. Richard Cave work with the University of Ghana and Talking Tips Africa to record speech datasets in Akan and Ga languages. Recordings of impaired speech were collected from a diverse group of people living with cerebral palsy, stuttering, trauma, Parkinson’s Disease amongst other conditions, creating one of the first non-standard speech corpora in African languages.

Google, University of Ghana and GDI Hub to Collaborate

Google, University of Ghana and GDI Hub will collaborate to Expand AI-Powered Speech Recognition for Non-Standard Speech in Ghanaian Languages