The King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) and IBM have joined hands in a project that is aimed at allowing people to interact with computers over the telephone in Arabic, highlighting the importance of Arabic-based technology applications.
Saudi Business Machines (SBM), the general marketing and services representative of IBM WTC in Saudi Arabia, is taking a prominent role in implementing these electronic voice services in the Kingdom.
This is an extension of the efforts of KACST, which established a Speech Center at the Computer and Electronics Research Institute in 1995 to manage and execute research projects to develop Arabic-language voice applications.
The Computer and Electronics Research Institute has already compiled an Arabic Phonetics Database that contains more that 46,000 files, each containing detailed samples of the Arabic sounds for use in speech applications, including speech synthesis, speech recognition, voice identification and treatment of speech impediments.
This project has grown due to the increasing need within public and private organizations for innovative ways to extend new services to their customers via telephone. Until now, these services were limited as users needed to communicate the function they wanted to access using a keypad. With a system that can facilitate “conversing” with the computer via telephone, users can dial up the service provider, and talk directly to the computer without the need to press buttons or communicate with a telephone operator.
The new system could be used by a host of public and private organizations to serve their customers. Users will be able to call airlines or travel agents, for example, and book or change their flights, or inquire about flight details verbally. Users could also call a telecommunication service provider to request a telephone number or billing information, or even call their bank to make inquiries or conduct transactions.
The application of this technology reduces the requirement for direct contact with employees, without reducing service levels, and allows human workers to be reallocated to provide more direct, value-added services for customers. These computer systems are also extremely fast, with rapid execution time, and can operate 24 hours a day.
IBM will handle the integration of these products into its multilingual conversation engine. This engine will form the core of an intelligent voice response system that can communicate with Arabic speakers, ultimately creating a computer system that can converse intelligently with telephone callers.
Components of the core technology were developed at IBM's Technical Development Center in Cairo, Egypt. This center was established by IBM to provide support for complex implementations at its customers around the region, as well as to develop new technologies, such as Arabization of new software systems.
KACST will initially prepare a massive library of voice files, followed by development of the linguistic scripts. This is a highly complex task, requiring detailed study and understanding of voice pronunciation and voice codes. The final product will be a sophisticated database containing over 50,000 voice files, and a similar number of voice codes, forming the basis of this new automatic speech recognition program.
King Abdulaziz City for Science and Technology (KACST) is an independent scientific organization administratively reporting to the Prime Minister. KACST's headquarters is located in Riyadh. Its objectives are proposing the national strategy in the fields of science and technology, executing applied research programs to serve the development in the Kingdom and providing assistance to private sectors in the area of research and development.
IBM is an international information technology company, with 2001 revenues of more than $35 billion. Services is the fastest growing part of IBM, with nearly 150,000 professionals serving customers in 160 countries. IBM Global Services has about 150 data centers around the world.
Established in 1981, Saudi Business Machines Limited (SBM), is one of the largest providers of technology products, e-business services and complete turn-key solutions in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. Part of the E.A. Juffali and Brothers Group of companies, it is the general marketing and services representative for IBM World Trade Corporation in the Kingdom, providing a full portfolio of IBM products.
Based in Jeddah, and with branches in Riyadh, Al-Khobar and Jubail, SBM has over 500 employees. It offers software and professional consultancy, together with services in networking, business recovery and operations support, alongside tailored maintenance services support for IBM and non-IBM products. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
