Some members of Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) communities are frequently unable to communicate effectively with English speakers. They are particularly vulnerable in stressful situations. 

Background

During the late 2010's, a small country town State Emergency Service unit, in Tasmania, attended a number of road crash events, in which the casualties were speaking a language which could not be identified.  Translation in this context couldn't happen. Effective communication to provide reassurance, give instructions and ask questions about injuries was impossible. 

In such situations, non-English speakers are at heightened risk of more adverse outcomes compared to English speakers.

The decision was made to explore the possible use of digital technology to identify spoken language.  In 2021, a small team of undergraduate IT students at the University of Tasmania (UTAS), accepted the challenge to produce a mobile app which would identify spoken language.  They succeeded. Their app would, indeed, identify a spoken language from a list of 10 languages. A proof of concept!  The alpha version of an app was created. However,  it relied on internet access and use of third party resources. 

In 2023 a second team at UTAS, accepted the challenge to develop a device that would operate without access to the internet or third party resources.  Success!!  The  AI driven beta version was created. Spoken language could be identified, within a second, from a short 3 to 8 second speech sample. In 2024,  this version was used by AISL Inc as the basis of a successful submission for funding from the Australian Government's  National Emergency Management Agency's, Disaster Ready Fund, Round 2. 

In 2026, using the funds secured by AISL Inc., an AI researcher and a software engineer were employed by UTAS. Their talent and ingenuity led to an app which can successfully identify spoken languages and enable basic communication with Culturally and Linguistically Diverse (CALD) people.

The app is called Speak2Me.