Marino Software

MARINO SOFTWARE

Bringing Charlie’s Voice Back

Marino Software’s innovative technology helps broadcaster Charlie Bird, and others with Motor Neurone Disease, to speak again with their own voice

Marino Software have created an assistive technology platform which addresses the needs of people that have vocal issues, whether from an underlying progressive condition such as Multiple Sclerosis (MS) or Motor Neuron Disease (MND), from accident/injury or due to age. It also addresses the needs of people that have deteriorating conditions where they lose their hands or legs strength.

The team at Marino Software give these people their voice back by using AI and Machine learning technology to capture, categorise and facilitate using their own voices in everyday situations.

Working with broadcaster Charlie Bird, who was losing his voice due to Motor Neuron Disease, the team needed a way to clone his voice as quickly as possible. There is existing technology to clone voices, however, it sounds robotic and loses the person’s unique character.

“Being able to keep your own voice as close as possible to the real thing is something that hugely helps with the trauma of losing your voice,” says Keith Davey, Managing Director. “Fortunately, we had a lot of records of Charlie Bird’s voice, which is crucial to building a realistic-sounding voice.”

“We worked on finding the pieces of audio that best represented Charlie’s voice and cleaned them of all ambient sounds (intakes of breath and so on). As a broadcaster, Charlie had endless amounts of audio available, so we were able to use this to synthesise his voice and get as close a match as possible,” explains Garrett Sheridan, Principal UX and Product Designer.

DIGITAL VOICE “We fed his data into a Machine Learning algorithm, and through a process of iteration, we generated Charlie’s digital voice: not only a voice that allows him to communicate but a voice that sounds like himself. Machine Learning was then able to use this base foundation to allow Charlie to dynamically create audio words, sentences, paragraphs, etc.”

By the end of the year, the team had developed what they thought was a good Charlie Bird voice. This was confirmed when they provided samples. Charlie and his wife Claire Keith Davey CEO and founder of Marino Software and Trevor Vaugh from NUI Maynooth

AS A BROADCASTER, CHARLIE HAD ENDLESS AMOUNTS OF AUDIO AVAILABLE, SO WE WERE ABLE TO USE THIS TO SYNTHESISE HIS VOICE AND GET AS CLOSE A MATCH AS POSSIBLE

were stunned, while others couldn’t believe this new digital voice wasn’t something Charlie had previously recorded.

The result has been a digital voice that has enabled Charlie to communicate easily and authentically with both his loved ones and the rest of the world. Thanks to this tool he was able to go for lunch with his daughters, meet the Taoiseach and now feels able to converse with everyone around him with confidence. He even spent one day in the pub with his close friends again and ordered a few beers with his new digital voice.

Most importantly, Charlie was able to send a message of resilience to the rest of the world. Inspiring millions to join him on ‘Climb with Charlie’ and fundraising over €3m for charity, going towards The Irish Motor Neurone Disease Association (IMNDA) and Pieta House.