{"id":122716,"date":"2021-07-09T15:00:41","date_gmt":"2021-07-09T15:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.nvidia.com\/?p=51429"},"modified":"2021-07-09T15:00:41","modified_gmt":"2021-07-09T15:00:41","slug":"tongues-untied-dataset-starts-global-dialogue-in-conversational-ai","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/webdomino.net\/index.php\/nvidia\/tongues-untied-dataset-starts-global-dialogue-in-conversational-ai\/","title":{"rendered":"Tongues Untied: Dataset Starts Global Dialogue in Conversational AI"},"content":{"rendered":"

A startup in East Africa is harnessing conversational AI<\/a> to get the word out about a third wave of COVID-19 passing through the region. It hopes its Mbaza AI Chatbot will lead to partnerships that use the technology to tackle other concerns across the continent\u2019s many languages.<\/p>\n

\u201cCOVID is here to stay, unfortunately, and it\u2019s a volatile topic with measures that tighten and loosen from week to week, so it\u2019s important for people to have access to the latest information,\u201d said Audace Niyonkuru, founder and CEO of Digital Umuganda<\/a>, the startup developing the software.<\/p>\n

Based in Rwanda\u2019s capital of Kigali, his team aims to deploy a basic voice service in August. It will follow up with a version by year\u2019s end that can interpret and respond to spoken questions.<\/p>\n

Conversational AI Gets the Word Out<\/b><\/h2>\n

\u201cOurs is a more oral culture where there are still barriers to access because it\u2019s easier for people to talk than write,\u201d Niyonkuru said of the primarily rural country where three-quarters of the 12 million population are literate.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a challenge shared widely across Africa, home to more than 2,000 languages and dialects. But Niyonkuru, a lifelong entrepreneur, prefers to see the glass as half full.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s a huge opportunity globally because conversational AI is a bridge over barriers to access \u2014 people can use their phones to get all sorts of medical or legal information,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Giving AI a Common Voice<\/b><\/h2>\n

To train a conversational AI model, you need an extremely large dataset of voice samples, something that takes lots of time to build or lots of money to buy. The startup trained its models on Mozilla Common Voice<\/a>, a free and publicly available multilingual platform and dataset created by Mozilla and supported by NVIDIA. The Common Voice dataset<\/a> was built through contributions from thousands of contributors across the world.<\/p>\n

Digital Umuganda is Africa\u2019s largest contributor to the platform. To date, it\u2019s organized contributors to create 2,200 hours of Kinyarwanda, the language spoken by 40 million people in and around Rwanda. It\u2019s the largest dataset after English in Common Voice today.<\/p>\n

To create the dataset, the startup tapped into Rwanda\u2019s tradition where neighbors gather on the last Saturday of each month to work on a community project. The startup embraced and extended the practice called umuganda.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe spirit of open source software is embedded in Rwanda\u2019s culture, so we just applied it to the digital world and datasets,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Donations Shared with All<\/b><\/h2>\n

Digital Umuganda started collecting data with student gatherings at universities, then went to the countryside to make sure the dataset represented people of all ages.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe beautiful thing is because it\u2019s in the open we see researchers around the world working with it,\u201d said Niyonkuru.<\/p>\n

Two branches of the Rwandan government have expressed interest in using the startup\u2019s technology, and at least one third party has already created a conversational AI model using the dataset.<\/p>\n

The COVID project got its start last spring when government call centers were overwhelmed by peaks of more than 10,000 calls for information about the pandemic. The Mbaza chatbot will be deployed on existing government healthcare lines as a 24\/7 information service.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s one example of how Common Voice is democratizing access to conversational AI around the globe, both for companies that develop the technology and consumers who use it.<\/p>\n

Giving More Languages a Voice<\/b><\/h2>\n

First launched in 2017, the Common Voice dataset gets an updated release twice a year. It focuses on expanding support in underrepresented languages, filling wide gaps left by commercial voice projects that typically focus on a handful of the most popular American, Asian and European languages.<\/p>\n

Common Voice currently packs more than 10,000 hours of recorded voice samples, collected and validated by volunteers. It\u2019s a treasure trove for startups, researchers and small- to medium-sized developers who don\u2019t have the time or money to collect or purchase datasets of their own.<\/p>\n

The next release, coming at the end of July, provides data from 75 languages, 15 of them debuting in Common Voice for the first time. They include Urdu, spoken by 70 million people in south Asia; Hausa, the language of 60 million Africans; as well as Azerbaijani, Armenian, Serbian and Uighur \u2014 none of which are supported by major commercial AI services.<\/p>\n

It will be the first release since NVIDIA became a partner<\/a> with Mozilla in April 2021, supporting Common Voice as part of a shared vision of making conversational AI available for everyone.<\/p>\n

How You Can Help<\/b><\/h2>\n

We created the NVIDIA Jarvis framework<\/a> to give developers state-of-the-art pre-trained deep learning models and software tools to create interactive conversational AI services. Now we\u2019re helping make this rich, open dataset available, too.<\/p>\n

Everyone is invited to join the global effort to make this technology available to all developers in all languages by going to Common Voice<\/a> and contributing or validating voice samples as part of a dataset anyone can use freely.<\/p>\n

Above: Digital Umuganda co-founder <\/i>Ali Nyiringabo<\/i> (right) with volunteers at an event in Kigali collecting and validating samples for Common Voice.<\/i><\/p>\n<\/div>

The post Tongues Untied: Dataset Starts Global Dialogue in Conversational AI<\/a> appeared first on The Official NVIDIA Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n<\/a> <\/a>\n<\/div>\"\"\/","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A startup in East Africa is harnessing conversational AI to get the word out about a third wave of COVID-19 passing through the region. It hopes its Mbaza AI Chatbot will lead to partnerships that use the technology to tackle other concerns across the continent’s many languages. “COVID is here to stay, unfortunately, and it’s Read article ><\/a><\/p>\n

The post Tongues Untied: Dataset Starts Global Dialogue in Conversational AI<\/a> appeared first on The Official NVIDIA Blog<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":381,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[343],"tags":[4223,12971,9935,2181,13301,2043,2659],"yoast_head":"\nTongues Untied: Dataset Starts Global Dialogue in Conversational AI - WebDomino.NET<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"http:\/\/webdomino.net\/index.php\/nvidia\/tongues-untied-dataset-starts-global-dialogue-in-conversational-ai\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Tongues Untied: Dataset Starts Global Dialogue in Conversational AI - WebDomino.NET\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A startup in East Africa is harnessing conversational AI to get the word out about a third wave of COVID-19 passing through the region. 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