UCL speaks up for unheard voices

With the help of Witness Studios, University College London and its Centre for Digital Learning and Inclusion (CDLI) unveils this powerful campaign on World Day For Assistive Technology.  

The five-and-a-half-minute documentary, When We Speak, explores how many people in the world with slurred or difficult-to-understand speech are being "left out of the algorithm” when it comes to AI speech technology, as their voices and language are often categorised as "noise".  

A second film, Oscar, tells the story of a barber in Accra who was born with a cleft palate, describing the isolation of having to write down thoughts because of the difficulty of being understood with his condition. The videos focus on the potential of digital assistive technologies - and the importance of ensuring no-one is left out of the algorithm during this critical stage of AI and ASR innovation.