The Story Behind Voispal Speech App

VoisPal AAC app was developed to give you, the user, the ability to express your thoughts precisely and clearly. With the power of speech, you can express your thoughts, ideas, emotions, build relationships and contribute value in society. Inability to speak is a great barrier in communication for those who have speech challenges. VoisPal speech app empowers people to express themselves by giving them the power of speech!

The Story of VoisPal

VoisPal was conceived when founder, Priya Akali, witnessed an event that moved her to compassion and stirred her to action. The event made her vow to apply her knowledge and skills to improve the lives of people with severe speech difficulties. Here is her story:

One day while in a restaurant, Priya watched how a 12-year-old boy struggled with a speech device to place his order. Eventually, he triumphed over his device when his order finally made it through. Priya says about this experience: "This 12-year-old boy comes into this fast food joint, looking determined to order his meal using a speech device. He carefully maneuvers the device selecting words to make a sentence 'Want', 'Burger', 'Cheese', 'Fries', 'Soda', going from screen to screen. And finally a smile appears on his face when the AAC device places the order in a robotic, monotone voice with broken sentences. The order was served right which lit the boy's eyes with a sense of being capable, despite being speech challenged! His mom was there too, but obviously allowing him to be self-sufficient."

While the scene played out before Priya, she was moved, amused and inspired and she kept thinking, even after leaving the restaurant: "What if his speech device allowed the boy to really speak his mind fluently, imagine the sense of self-sufficiency he could experience!" This was the beginning of Priya's journey to find a better solution for people with complex communication needs and the subsequent birth of VoisPal. Priya knew that her education (Masters in Health Informatics from Northeastern University) along with her experience would allow her to truly make a difference in this area.

The Dream For VoisPal Speech App

Priya formulated her dreams for VoisPal based on her technical skills and on what she envisioned a speech app should be able to do. She wanted this application to be intuitive and user friendly - something she felt current AAC devices lacked. In addition, she felt that existing AAC devices, though robust in nature, hadn't caught up to the new technologies that people in today's world use on a daily basis.

She wanted her AAC app to include features such as search, bookmarking and history functionality found in most browsers. Priya wanted this application to easily fit today's technology habits! In addition, she wanted VoisPal speech app as a leader in the next generation AAC assistive speech applications to enable the user to:

• Speak in complete sentences without having to type or select every word.
• Look through an expansive library supporting over 5000 commonly used sentences - grouped in easy to understand categories.
• Have quick and easy access to sentences that allow you to speak your mind.
• Personalize the device by adding your own categories, phrases and sentences.
• Select from a multitude of voices, so you don’t sound like bionic man or woman!
• Search through the device, bookmark sentences and even access your history of sentences.
• Customize the device to fit your needs.
• Run on a device that suits your needs - from your mobile phone to your tablet device.
• Add a notch to your coolness factor!

This is the personal history of VoisPal AAC Speech App - a smart and friendly way to express your thoughts, feelings and ideas fluently!