A group of HKU students won the 3rd Prize (Entrepreneurship Category) of the 7th HK University Student Innovation and Entrepreneurship Competition of 2021 with an entrepreneurship proposal on "InnoChat - An AI Speech Therapist". This competition was organized by the HK New Generation Cultural Association, co-organized by the HK Science and Technology Parks Corporation, and funded by the Innovation and Technology Committee.
Members of the group include:
- DIXIT Tratik of BEng in Computer Science (Year 3)
- CHAN Lee Yan Jodie of BSc in Speech and Hearing Science (Year 4)
- CHEUNG So Yee, Jasmine of BSc major in Chemistry & minor in Astronomy (Year 4)
- CHAN On Ying Angel of BBA(Law) & LLB (Year 4)
- ZOU Xiang Simba of BSc major in Physics & seoncd major in Computer Science (Year 3) and
- MAK Lai Hang Colin of BBA(Law) & LLB (Year 4)
The original project idea was from a winning project "InnoChat" of the 2020-2021 InnoSpark Pitching Competition organized by the Innovation Academy of the HKU Faculty of Engineering. This project has now been renamed "Vera", an app on AI Speech Therapy, and more information is available from their website.
About their proposal:
1 in 7 children in Hong Kong suffer from speech disorders. Many of them do not have prompt access to speech therapy due to inadequate government services and expensive costs of private speech clinics. The proposed mobile application, Vera, can help overcome temporal, spatial, and financial barriers faced by children with speech disorders in Hong Kong. Vera is an AI-powered application making use of Natural Language Processing, deep learning and big data to provide accurate and immediate diagnosis, as well as personalized treatment of speech sound disorders for children in Hong Kong. The stress-free and interactive diagnosis process is facilitated by a conversing chatbot. After diagnosis, Vera provides personalized and gamified treatment in the form of pronunciation exercises to encourage children to receive treatment more actively and regularly. Vera aims to fill the gaps in real-life therapy and brings additional convenience, flexibility and affordability. It does not aim to replace speech therapists but rather it assists their work. While speech therapists provide professional advice and recommend appropriate treatment, Vera comes into play to ensure patients can practice regularly anytime even without the presence of a speech therapist, at the same time it allows speech therapists to remotely track patients' progress in improving pronunciation.
