One of the goals of the AINA Challenge is to develop services or applications in Catalan that apply AI. To support this, grants of €50,000 are awarded to fund proposals (up to 16 per call) that have AI and Catalan at their core. One of the winning research groups in the latest call is CLiC, from the University of Barcelona and a member of the AccessCat network.

Their proposal, TransAP, builds on SCRIBAL, a transcription and translation tool developed by the group and previously funded by the network [more information available here]. This new web platform uses automatic speech recognition in Catalan and is specifically adapted for people with Down syndrome or cerebral palsy, two groups that experience significant speech production difficulties.

The platform will enable both real-time live transcription and transcription of audio and video files. To assess its usefulness and social impact, the researchers will collaborate with the Fundació iSocial (an affiliated entity of the AccessCat Network). The ultimate aim is to demonstrate the viability of adapting AI/TL technologies to communities with specific communication needs.