This text-to-speech engine enables a machine to ‘speak for itself’

This article is sponsored by Intel.

Intel has launched multiple initiatives to support the government’s Digital India initiative, which includes - the Intel India Maker lab that provides infrastructure to budding entrepreneurs and platforms; International Science & Engineering Fair (Intel ISEF) that stimulates a culture of innovation and technology-enabled transformation in youth and the Innovate for Digital India Challenge.

In April 2015 Intel and DST launched the Innovate for Digital India challenge, which was an invitation to aspiring or existing entrepreneurs and innovators to develop intuitive and easy-to-use solutions to drive technology adoption or create applications that accelerate the delivery of e-governance services through eKranti/MyGov apps on mobile platforms.

The challenge attracted 1,900 entries from all over India. The top 10 winning teams and their ideas were announced on November 20.

One of the top 10 finalists was Indian TTS, a Text-to-Speech engine built on the Intel ® Edison board for Indian languages, with a strong emphasis on the rhythm and prosody of speech that is closer to natural enunciation. This solution will help various end users like local guides, alert systems in manufacturing, and interactive voice response (IVR) software – essentially, it will allow a machine to ‘speak for itself,’ based on the situation at hand, the response it has been programmed to provide.