GUWAHATI:
The Centre for Linguistic Science and Technology (CLST), Indian Institute of Technology – Guwahati (IIT – G), on March 29, announced it is developing ‘Speech Technologies for North Eastern Languages’ (STNEL) for Healthcare Information Dissemination (HID).
This project involves building speech technology tools with the help of spoken keyword spotting (KWS) for HID in Hindi, English and Bangla, including the seven Northeastern languages – Bodo, Manipuri, Khasi, Assamese, Mizo, Nagamese, and Nepali.
The interdisciplinary team comprises Rohit Sinha, Priyankoo Sarmah, Sanasam Ranbir Singh and Ashish Anand, CLST, IIT – G, and the project is part of a larger consortium project, titled, “Speech Technologies for Indian Languages (STIL)”, led by IIT Madras as the leader.
Elaborating on this project, Sinha said, “The institute is committed to developing tools that will facilitate last-mile connectivity and information dissemination to the various communities living in remote areas of Northeast, in their own languages. This project is a step towards achieving that aim.”
He further emphasised on how the Centre is a unique and truly interdisciplinary centre devoted to the analysis and technology development in the languages of Northeast India, through research projects and its PhD programme.
TG Sitharam, director of IIT-G, highlighted the unique aspects of this project, stating, “This work embodies our commitment to work for the local languages and ethnicities of North East India. The interdisciplinary nature of the project, with its focus on local languages, reflects the spirit envisaged in the National Education Policy (NEP), 2020.”
The CLST has received funding for this project from the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology, under its National Language Translation Mission (NLTM): Bhashini initiative, and will collectively work with research teams from the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (CDAC) in Kolkata, Indian Institute of Information Technology (IIIT), Sri City, Andhra Pradesh and National Institute of Technology (NIT) in Manipur.
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