Android App Lets Visually Impaired in India Listen to Texts in Native Languages

Carnegie Mellon and Hear2Read Make Free Software Available

A visually impaired boy in India uses open-source software developed by CMU and the Hear2Read project that converts electronic text written in Indian languages into messages he can hear.

BY Byron Spice - Thu, 2016-08-04 09:30  

Millions of visually impaired people in India may benefit from free, open-source software for Android devices that converts electronic text written in Indian languages into messages they can hear.

The text-to-speech (TTS) software, developed by Carnegie Mellon University in collaboration with the Hear2Read project, can now be downloaded free of charge from Google Play. Tamil is the first language offered, with subsequent releases of seven major languages — Hindi, Bengali, Gujarati, Marathi, Kannada, Punjabi and Telugu — expected over the remainder of the year.

Four out of five people in India speak one of those eight languages. India has 22 official languages in all. More than 62 million Indians are visually impaired.

"We're looking to create speech output for as many languages as possible," said Suresh Bazaj, a serial entrepreneur in the San Francisco Bay area and founder of Hear2Read.

TTS software is commonplace in the United States and many parts of the world, but Bazaj said good quality TTS for Indian languages is difficult to find, difficult to use or unaffordable. Yet the need is great — only 10 percent of blind children in India get any education, and 90 percent of visually impaired Indians live in poverty.

"Making it available as free, open-source software thus was a key goal," said Alan Black, a professor in the School of Computer Science's Language Technologies Institute (LTI). "People should be able to download this and it should just work. We put a lot of effort into making this accessible and easy to use."

Bazaj met Black, a scientist internationally known for his work in speech synthesis, through Alok Parlikar, a former student of Black's, two years ago and recruited him to the project. While the LTI had a wealth of knowledge and tools for creating TTS software, the Hear2Read project inspired Black and his students to develop a system for doing so repeatedly, efficiently and for producing user-friendly software.

"Each language is different, and historically TTS systems have been done one at a time," Bazaj said. "We looked at commonalities of Indian languages and developed tools to apply the same technology to multiple languages."

The system developed by Black's research team enables creation of a baseline TTS system after recording 2–3 hours of clear, consistent speech from a native speaker. The open-source text read by the speaker comes from various sources such as Wikisource, books and periodicals. (Check out the video below.)

Though the machine learning process used to create voice databases requires large-scale computing, the resulting database for each language is relatively small and can run on low-end Android phones or tablets that retail for less than $100 (7,000 Indian rupees). That cost threshold is within guidelines established by the Government of India's Assistance for Disabled Persons program, which helps people with disabilities purchase assistive devices based on income.

The conversion from text to speech is done in real-time without internet access, as most people in India either do not have continuous internet access or cannot afford it.

The Hear2Read app works with the Android Talkback accessibility option that allows people with low vision to use applications such as web browsers, email, SMS (texting), phone calls, word processors, spreadsheets and book readers.

For Bazaj, this project has personal meaning. He has had retinal detachments in both eyes that were successfully repaired. He was fortunate to have access to excellent medical care, which is not the case for most people in India. He believes the ability to read is directly related to a good quality of life, and so his mission began.

"Like any startup, I jumped into it not knowing how deep the pool was," Bazaj recalled. After meeting Black, he began supporting a CMU student to develop TTS for Indian languages. In addition, he has recruited more than 50 native Indian speaking volunteers based in the United States and India.

"This project couldn't have been accomplished without the dedication and support  provided by our selfless volunteers," Bazaj said. The San Francisco Bay Area non-profits Access Braille and Indians for Collective Action have provided funding to support the project.

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Carnegie Mellon University is a private, internationally ranked research university with programs in areas ranging from science, technology and business, to public policy, the humanities and the arts. More than 13,000 students in the university's seven schools and colleges benefit from a small student-to-faculty ratio and an education characterized by its focus on creating and implementing solutions for real problems, interdisciplinary collaboration and innovation.

Hear2Read is a volunteer organization dedicated to bridging the digital divide for blind and low-vision Indic language populations. Our mission is to open doors to all education, employment and business opportunities for the visually challenged.

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy2iGCwmgbw&feature=youtu.be

Source: http://www.hear2read.org/press.php

For More Information: 

Byron Spice | 412-268-9068 | bspice@cs.cmu.edu

Teachers are backbone of our society: Dev Lahiri

According to data tabled in the Lok Sabha by the Human Resources Development Minister on December 5, 2016, 18 per cent positions of teachers in government-run primary schools and 15 per cent in secondary schools are vacant nationwide. Educationist Dev Lahiri talks about whats plaguing the system.

What’s the biggest problem our education system is facing?

Our teachers. It’s the last choice for most, for various reasons. They just want to get the job done with and make money from tuitions. Most teachers have very little connect with students and don’t know, for instance, how to keep them engaged on days they are ‘switched off’ and don’t want to know Maths or Science. Good teachers link curriculum to life in a very imaginative way.

How do we get the right kind of people on board?

We need to put out the message strongly that teachers are the backbone of society. Thanks to the Nehruvian ethos, right after independence the emphasis was on engineering and medicine, then as corporate world took over, MBA became big, then IT and finance. But school teaching was never given priority, and so even today we don’t have a single teacher-training institution with the brand equity of an IIT or IIM. We need to make teaching a prestigious, well-paying, aspirational profession and have an elite examination like IAS for it. Teachers must be held accountable with stringent assessment and accordingly promoted. Pride (with substance) needs to be built into the profession. In Finland to become a good teacher is like getting into an IIT!

You’ve worked with several schools. Do you see a flaw in the mindset?

Schools are obsessed with certifications and not education. The system itself is flawed. Students have to choose between Commerce, Science and Arts as early as Class 9. At that level you should be able to do physics and Shakespeare, music and Maths, Humanities, Sociology and Political Science, and understand the connection between all diciplines. The US offers this even at university level. Our system is repressive. CBSE has a range of wonderful subjects, but it’s so difficult to find teachers, especially for the Humanities, because it has no tuition market. The Humanities are largely scoffed at and we (the nation) are paying a heavy price for it.

Wouldn’t it be better at boarding schools?

Boarding schools have a great opportunity for non-curricular activities, value building and citizenship and it does wonders to kids. But they too are facing competition from the tuition market. Post Class 10, parents want to remove their kids and get them seriously involved in professional exams. Therefore, some boarding schools have started outsourcing that part to tuition academies. Ironically, that’s pushing corporates to take employees for group and outdoor activities to develop their leadership skills and out of the box thinking.

No board seems to be doing well, including the once-prestigious ICSE. What’s the reason?

CBSE is constantly working towards upgrading and the NCERT’s doing good research for text books. But there’s no support and there’s a lot of heterogeneous activity thanks to our numbers. Moreover, it often becomes a political tool in the hand of governments; it should be neutral. As for ICSE, it’s become the preserve of a very small community that in the past gave us amazing teachers, but has no new thinking going on today thanks to brain drain. State boards are the greatest concern, 80% in some states is equivalent to 40% in others.

Is there any attempt to standardise scores with mechanisms like GPA?

No, but there should be. The focus is entirely on higher education; no one talks about schools even though they preparing you for it.

And what about contemporary issues pertaining to students?

Bullying is a big problem, but heads try to push all issues under the carpet, increasing the danger. We need honest dialogue between all stakeholders on substance abuse, atheism and gender issues, but our schools have no place for it. Hence, even today, in co-ed schools, when girls make requests regarding their periods, a titter goes around the class and ill-equipped, embarrassed male teachers end up tackling it ham-handedly.

You’ve been advocating student-led solutions. Can they help?

I have great faith in young people, but how will their creative juices flow, when they are so busy trying to get that 99%? With students at the university I work in, I’ve created a peer counselling programme to rescue kids who are getting drunk and putting themselves in danger; they can call the university for help or to be picked up when in vulnerable situations.

Source: Daily News and Analysis dated 20 December 2016