In today’s world, making products and services available to anyone who needs them is more important than ever. Greater efforts are being made to ensure everyone has equal opportunity and access to websites, devices and tech features. 

This is especially true for those who have previously had difficulty gaining access to these things because of their disabilities or impairments. The creation of the Speech Accessibility Project aims to change this by bringing together major tech companies to make speech recognition more widely accessible. 

Learn how this affects you as a digital reseller.

The Speech Accessibility Project: What Is It?

The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has partnered with five major tech companies to create and work on the Speech Accessibility Project. The collaborative effort addresses the major need for speech recognition technology to be available and useful to people who experience a vast range of speech patterns, disabilities and impairments. 

To work towards making speech recognition more accessible, volunteers are paid to contribute recorded voice samples to give machine learning models access to a diverse range of speech patterns that the models can use to understand a wider variety of speakers. 

Speech Recognition Accessibility: Why Is It So Important?

Speech recognition technology makes a huge difference in many people’s lives. From voice-controlled smart technology in smart homes to asking Siri about the weather tomorrow, speech recognition plays a major part in day-to-day life. However, for anyone with a non-standard speech pattern, voice recognition is simply not an option. 

Those with conditions such as Lou Gehrig’s disease, ALS, cerebral palsy and other diseases and disorders that result in a non-standard speech pattern are incomprehensible to current voice recognition technology. Rather than only benefiting those with standard speech patterns, speech recognition accessibility makes it possible for everyone to benefit from voice-powered technology.

Who Is Involved In The Speech Accessibility Project Initiative? 

The Speech Accessibility Project has made the major achievement of launching with cross-industry support with huge names in the tech industry working together to make speech recognition more inclusive. Non-profit organizations work alongside researchers and big names, including: 

• Meta
• Google
• Microsoft
• Amazon
• Apple

These companies have recognized the need in terms of accessibility and, rather than competing with each other to be the first to offer new speech recognition features, have contributed their impressive resources to make great strides toward achieving a common goal. We can likely expect incredible things from the Speech Accessibility Project in the near future. 

The Speech Accessibility Project And Digital Agencies

Many of your digital agency’s clients have target audiences that navigate the world with voice-powered search. Whether they are using it to search certain terms or phrases online or as part of their online shopping experience, speech recognition is essential in the digital world. 

Speech recognition accessibility will give more people access to the online space, people who could form part of your clients’ target audiences and, as a result, find and engage with your clients online. This development will likely continue to expand over time, offering digital agencies even more opportunities in the future. 

At Globital Canada, we work with digital agencies needing quality, white label social media reseller services. As one of Canada’s top social media outsourcing companies,  we recognize the importance of inclusivity and the role it plays in our clients’ marketing strategies. Interested in reaching even more of your target audience with white label services that keep accessibility in mind? Contact Globital Canada today at support@globitalmarketing.com,