I was scrolling through Facebook in early May when I came across a video called GoldiVox, a short animation about a young girl named Goldivox on the search of a voice of her own. The young girl uses an AAC (augmentative and alternative communication) device to communicate with those around her, but the voice programmed into it is nothing more than that of a synthesized computer, much like the one we have all heard used by Stephen Hawking.

The company behind the adorable video? VocaliD, a company run by Dr. Rupal Patel, a Speech Language Pathologist who founded the company and is the current CEO.

She even gave a TEDtalk explaining synthetic voices, which can be found here and this video explains the project well.

Since that night in May when I came across Goldivox, I have become an Ambassador for VocaliD's Summer Fellowship Program, which aims to gather those who are passionate in this cause to hold voice drives. (Like a blood drive, but no needles!) We aim to get people to donate 3500 sentences (approximately five to seven hours of total time) on their own schedule, whenever they have a few extra minutes. My personal goal is to get my donors to do this in the next six weeks, and anyone interested in joining my drive can contact me at sherilyn.james@gmail.com for more information.

At the completion of this donation, their voice becomes part of the VoiceBank, in which those who are in need of a voice can choose a voice best for them, or (and this is the awesome part), record two to three seconds of their own voice (this may only be a sound or two, as vocals for some people with disabilities may be extremely difficult, if at all possible) and get matched with a person in the VoiceBank who sounds similar to them. Just like Goldivox, a person can be matched with a voice to use on their assistive communication device, so they sound not like a computer, but like the individual person they are. If a person is going to lose their voice due to disease or cancer (some people need to have their larynx removed) they can even become a Vocal Legacy and log their own voice to be used after their surgery or loss of voice occurs.

For more information, visit https://vocalid.co/ or contact me at sherilyn.james@gmail.com to become a part of my voice drive. All ages and all voices are welcome!