Campaign Aims to Make Voice Tech More Inclusive

The Federation of Parents' Associations of Deaf People of Catalonia (ACAPPS) and Projecte Aina, a Generalitat de Catalunya initiative carried out by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center – National Supercomputing Centre (BSC-CNS), have launched the ‘100 diverse voices’ campaign. The project, announced on Wednesday 4th November 2026, seeks to gather voice samples from 100 deaf volunteers to improve the accuracy of automatic transcription systems for people with hearing loss. Voice-to-text tools often struggle with natural variations in speech, such as rhythm, intonation, accent, and articulation. Sílvia Lamela, project technician at ACAPPS, stressed that for these tools to be truly accessible, they must reflect linguistic diversity: "Each person has their own rhythm, intonation, accent, and way of articulating sounds. For automatic transcription to truly be an accessibility tool, it must be able to recognize this diversity."

Open Platform Accepts Donations Until December

The voice collection will remain open until December 2026 via a dedicated platform developed by ACAPPS, based on the open-source multilingual project Common Voice. The platform allows participants to record and submit their voices online, contributing directly to training artificial intelligence models in understanding atypical speech patterns. This initiative builds on ACAPPS’s ongoing research into transcription technologies and aligns with Projecte Aina’s ethical AI principles, which prioritise inclusivity and social impact. BSC researcher Carme Armentano described the campaign as "a great opportunity to build more accessible AI for everyone and a step forward in boosting the social impact of artificial intelligence development." The collaboration combines ACAPPS’s expertise in communication accessibility with BSC’s capabilities in AI and Catalan language processing. The resulting data will be used to train more accurate, inclusive voice recognition systems, particularly for Catalan speakers with hearing impairments.

How to Participate

Individuals with hearing loss who use Catalan in their daily communication are invited to take part. Participants should have diverse linguistic and communicative profiles to ensure broad representation. Voice donations can be made through the ACAPPS campaign platform, which is now live.

Sources: Diari de la Discapacitat, Generalitat de Catalunya, acapps.org.