The first "Digital Voice Ecosystem" is born
Return at people affected by ALS the ability to communicate with an artificial voice with human expressiveness. It is the innovative "VOICE FOR PURPOSE", the digital technology platform that sees the involvement ofUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma, NeMO Clinical Centers, Nemo Lab, translated, Dream On e AISLA. With the video message of the President of the Council of Ministers Giorgia Meloni, the project was presented in the Roman headquarters of the European Parliament with the greetings of the MEP Nicholas Procaccini and the interventions of the Minister of Health Horace Schillaci e Sandra Gallina, Director-General Directorate-General for Health and Food Safety (SANTE), and the video message of the WHO Director-General, TEDROS Adhanom Ghebreyesus.
Born from an intuition of Pino Insegno, actor and voice actor who put the voice at the center of his life, “VOICE FOR PURPOSE” is a real "library of voices" with a double value. If on the one hand will allow people who have lost their speech to choose an expressive oneamong all those that will be donated by people from all over the world, on the other will allow you to "save" your voice, recording it. A possibility, the latter, which will be accessible to all those who have still retained the ability to speak, so that in the future no one will be forced to speak with a metallic voice when the disease comes to affect it. "When you intensely dream of something and you meet people like you who are able to be amazed by the news– explained Pino Insegno - it means that the dream can come true, that your vision can materialize. This is the experience we are having with "Voice with Purpose": on my way I have met highly sensitive scientists, head physicians and entrepreneurs with whom we are transforming my intuition into tools which, through the voice, can give new well-being to those who suffer and a new perspective of relationship”.
"Those who experience a neuromuscular pathology have to deal with physical limits every day and in this sense technology represents a fundamental tool at the service of everyone's need for autonomy – dichiara Stephen Regondi, general manager NeMO Clinical Centers and Nemo Lab, which continues – This is the mission of our technological center which was born in the wake of fifteen years of experience, research and care of the NeMO Centers with which we have taken care of about 20 thousand patients in recent years. With this awareness and responsibility, it is a privilege for us to share this research path with partners of high scientific excellence". Operating since 2021, Nemo Lab, in fact, with its ten laboratories, is the first Italian technological hub exclusively dedicated to neuromuscular and neurodegenerative diseases.
"It's amazing to see how the AI voices we develop help people communicate with each other - Said Fabio Minazzi, Director of Audiovisual of Translated - Making this project work requires the ability to scale on artificial voices to meet the needs of people in different conditions. Every day we learn something new and improve the project through collaboration with patients. Overall, we are proud to contribute our knowledge and computing power to this initiative which contributes to people's quality of life."
A result strongly desired by those who work with the voice every day and work for the well-being of people with the aim of develop user-friendly interfaces, capable of returning a flexible voice and able to express moods, emotions and worries, more realistically.
"The alliance between technologies, research and clinic that takes its cue from the "Voice For Purpose" platform and aims at the "Digital Voice Ecosystem - emphasized Eugenio Guglielmelli, rector ofUniversità Campus Bio-Medico di Roma and scientific director of the Don Foundation Carlo Gnocchi - it represents an important opportunity to accelerate the development of more effective and efficient tools to give people who can no longer speak a speed and expressive coherence increasingly similar to their real intention. With our research units we will work on the development of advanced intelligent systems which, also through the data provided by some physiological parameters that can be monitored, make it possible to make the patient's intention and state perceptible in order to give him back a greater capacity for communication and social interaction to support the quality of his independent life".
