AMMAN – A stutter can make it difficult and embarrassing
to speak in public. But a Jordanian company,
TakalamTech, is using modern
technology to help those suffering from stutters gain confidence and lift their
voices.
اضافة اعلان
“We use
artificial intelligence, the Internet
of Things, and software development to find solutions for hearing and speaking
impairments. Takalam Stuttering Cure is our first product, a mobile application
and wearable gadget that uses the choral effect technique and the Takalam algorithm
to reduce stuttering,” Abdallah Al-Faris, the company’s CEO, said in an
interview with
Jordan News.
TakalamTech is a Jordan-based health-tech
company that specializes in hearing and speech aid equipment and software. It uses
a combination of tried-and-true technology and experimental practices to reduce
stuttering. The company’s name means “you speak” in Arabic.
Faris and his partners — CTP Abdulkarim Al-Banna, COO Ghassan Sabtin, and Device Development Manager Adnan Haddad — have been developing their project for three years.
“Initially, the idea was for a graduation
project for the University of Petra's Faculty of Information Technology,” he
explained. “We were four persons, one of them had a stuttering problem. The
idea was for a phone application that would solve the stuttering problem.”
The Takalam Stuttering Device is a tiny in-ear
wearable device. When a person speaks in front of a group of people while
wearing the device, their stammer reduces or disappears completely, according
to the company. Faris described it as “a handheld device connected with a
speaker that is worn in one ear and has no appearance.”
The device works by mimicking the chorus effect, a phenomenon in which a
person’s stutter improves or even disappears when speaking or singing in unison
with someone else. “We created an environment where the stutterer hears sounds
that help” them to speak normally, explained Faris. The device allows the
stutterer to hear their own voice, providing the illusion that another person
is speaking at the same time as the user.
The company received funding from
Oasis500, a
seed investment company and accelerator that supports entrepreneurs in the
Kingdom.
However, Faris discussed a problem that faces
many people in Jordan and the Middle East region: how to reach companies that can
produce the stuttering device and how to test it. But TakalamTech offers
stuttering devices at affordable prices, and they can test it easily around the
world using an app, according to Faris. “Our web application emulates
everything we do through our device, so we tried to fill the gap between the
company and the customers.”
The company also offers treatment sessions and an online
platform for therapists to manage their clinics and evaluate individual cases.
Faris added that stutterers can use web app
software to get a free online session with a speech-language pathologist and
test software that accomplishes the same effects as the Takalam device, before
deciding whether to buy it or not. “Anyone can get a free trial by scheduling
an appointment with one of our pathologists to test the device's performance,”
he explained.
Furthermore, TakalamTech provides more
services such as Takalam Community, which is a service that collects voices
stuttering in Arabic to assist speech-language pathologists evaluate their
cases using automated algorithms.
“Stuttering is a lifelong problem and most of
our cases are adults,” he said. “Recently, 11 devices have been distributed for
free, to 11 cases that were with us from the year 2018.”
“We are the first company in the
world who uses artificial intelligence in stuttering treatment devices, and we
are building a smart module that can know every case situation once it speaks,” Faris said.
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