Human Language Technologies (HLT) - OpenPhone Project

Successfully completed in 2008, the OpenPhone project demonstrated the use of telephony-based information services in providing health information in a rural setting. In partnership with the Botswana Baylor Children's Clinical Centre of Excellence (Baylor) and the University of Botswana, a health information system was developed that provides information to caregivers looking after HIV-positive children living in the vicinity of Gabarone in Botswana.

The project was co-sponsored by the Open Society Institute (OSI), The Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) and built on earlier work sponsored by the IDRC. The OpenPhone project included the development of Text-to-Speech (TTS) and Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems in the Sengwatketsi dialect of Setswana, and the main focus was on the selection, development and piloting of a community-oriented telephony service to address acute informational needs. In the process, significant capacity was developed with regard to the development and deployment of telephony-based information services.

The current system provides a helpline to home caregivers looking after HIV-positive children. Many general questions crop up time and again. For example, people would like to know what to do if medication was not taken at the correct time, or whether they should re-administer medication if a child vomits shortly after medication has been taken. Topics are limited to common situations for which advice can be dealt out safely. (The actual content was co-developed and approved of by registered medical practitioners.)

All technologies and content developed are distributed freely as Open Source software and Open Content.

Links

OpenPhone information system: spoken dialogue design and voice recordings

OpenPhone TTS corpus: segmented and labelled voice recordings

Telephony Platform Development - link to internal telephony platform site

Download the OpenPhone authoring tool, called “DialogPalette” at the following website: http://dialogpalette.sourceforge.net