As someone who stutters, Joris Castermans, the CEO and founder of Dutch startup Whispp, knew whispering helps with fluency. Castermans undertook the “really labor intensive” work of creating a dataset of phrases in both spoken and whispered speech, and then used that data to train an AI model that transforms whispered and raspy utterances into natural sounding speech in real-time. Released in January, the Whispp app allows users with a severe stutter or vocal disability to speak clearly on phone calls with less than half a second latency, empowering them “in their daily lives and work,” Casterman says. He adds that the company is working to expand into video call services and offer a solution for in-person conversations.
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