Ford test-drives WordWave’s speech to text technology

Tony Adams, who is hearing impaired and based at Ford’s Dagenham headquarters in Essex, used the groundbreaking technology at a meeting in April.

Speech to Text involves a highly skilled stenographer capturing the spoken word at a meeting, conference, seminar or lecture. The text feed is then viewed on the client’s laptop computer, or projected onto a big screen if there’s more than one user.

Because the whole process takes just a few seconds, clients can read what’s being said, as it’s being said. After the event, WordWave can e-mail the raw text transcript to anyone who requests it, within a couple of hours.

Although WordWave has been piloting Speech to Text with Ford for a while, April’s meeting was Tony’s first chance to use the service at a live event.

The idea behind the service is to provide cost-effective but high quality communication support to deaf and hearing impaired employees who might otherwise find it difficult to participate fully in live events. With Speech to Text, users no longer have to rely on an interpreter and can have access to every single word, rather than a summary of proceedings.

In Tony’s case, the stenographer was present in the room. But WordWave also offers a remote Speech to Text service, which it developed with the help of deaf solicitor Myles Nesbitt, who works at Gloucester City Council. This service uses telephone and Internet technology, so the stenographer can capture what’s being said from a remote location. For regular users, this cuts down on extra costs, like travel expenses.

As well as Ford and Gloucester City Council, WordWave currently provides Speech to Text services to a range of other organisations including BT, Ofcom and the Disability Rights Commission.

Says Ruth Myers from the UK Council on Deafness and Telecommunications Action Group: “I’m a happy user of Speech to Text services – often at short notice – and appreciate the service provided by WordWave. It is helpful and reassuring to know that someone is trying to meet the demand for Speech to Text reporters.”

To find out more about WordWave’s Speech to Text services, contact Ispha Hazzard at: ispha.hazzard@wordwave.co.uk