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Welcome to Wikispeech!

"Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge."
That is the Wikimedia Movement's commitment.

Estimates show that around 775 million human beings on our planet are illiterate. Close to 300 million people of all ages have a visual impairment to some degree, and almost 40 million are completely blind.[1][2][3] Millions more face cognitive challenges—such as dyslexia, ADHD, autism, or aphasia—that make it difficult to process, understand, or navigate complex text and dense information structures. As long as Wikipedia and the Wikimedia platforms do not actively address the needs of people with visual or cognitive disabilities, those who cannot access the content in its current form will remain excluded from the sum of all knowledge.

Through Wikispeech, we aim to change that. Wikispeech is a free and open text-to-speech (TTS) and solution with speech gathering capabilities. Wikispeech will make the Wikimedia projects speak – for anyone, cognitively impaired, illiterate, blind, or just belonging to the quarter of the world's population who prefer learning from listening rather than reading.[4] Wikispeech will give millions of people across the world access to free knowledge.

The project is now in a phase where we specifically focus on finding ways to make the content of Wikipedia more adapted to the needs of people with cognitive impairment. This work is done with the support of several organisations such as The Swedish National Association for Aphasia, The Swedish National Association for Dyslexia and Dyscalculia and The Swedish Agency for Accessible Media

Wikispeech aims to become available for all who visit a MediaWiki wiki. That means that any reader who wishes to take part of the information can do it via Wikispeech; no extra equipment or particularly powerful devices will be needed. The Wikimedia movement strives for knowledge equity. With Wikispeech, people across the world can listen to the information on the Wikimedia platforms, on equal terms. The availability of the devices and equipment that do exist vary greatly between where in the world one lives, and what language one speaks.

In true Wikimedia fashion, volunteers will be able to improve the quality of Wikispeech. Errors and flaws can be corrected, and in the long run, new voices and languages can be added. As part of the project, tools for collecting speech data will be developed. With this data, new voices can be created. And both the tools and the data will of course be released under a free license, so that they can be used in other speech technology projects too.

References

[edit]
  1. ↑ Wikipedia contributors. (2020, September 19). List of countries by literacy rate. In Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Retrieved 14:56, October 6, 2020, from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_countries_by_literacy_rate&oldid=979289293
  2. ↑ Pascolini D, Mariotti SPM. Global estimates of visual impairment: 2010. British Journal Ophthalmology Online. First published December 1, 2011 as 10.1136/bjophthalmol-2011-300539.
  3. ↑ Max Roser and Esteban Ortiz-Ospina (2016) – "Literacy". Published online at OurWorldInData.org. Retrieved from: https://ourworldindata.org/literacy [Online Resource]
  4. ↑ Buşan AM. "Learning styles of medical students – implications in education". Curr Health Sci J. 2014;40(2):104-110. doi:10.12865/CHSJ.40.02.04
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