Hudson Valley Man Gets Voice Back After Losing it From ALS
Thanks to a revolutionary program a Hudson Valley man is the first person in the world to get his voice back after losing it from ALS.
The ALS Association launched Project Revoice an international initiative to help people with ALS record their voices so they still use their voice after they lose their ability to speak.
Pat Quinn, 34, from Yonkers, was the first person to receive a voice from Project Revoice. Quinn, the co-founder of the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge, didn't record his voice for Project Revoice, before ALS took his voice. But, Project Revoice used footage of Quinn from his many Ice Bucket Challenge interviews to clone his voice.
"This takes speech tech to a whole new level and means everything to how I communicate," Quinn said. I really didn’t like to hear my old computer voice, so I often avoided getting involved in conversations. This technology gives me back a vital piece of myself that was missing. After hearing my voice through this new technology, I was blown away!"
Project Revoice uses new technology to recreate high-quality voices with only a few hours of "voice banking," according to a press release.
"Recreating Pat’s voice and hearing him use it for the first time with his friends and family was truly inspirational," Executive Vice President for Communications at The ALS Association Brian Frederick said."Our next step is to build this into a program to ensure that people with ALS can maintain that unique part of themselves – their voice – even after they lose the ability to speak."
Project Revoice is now working to encourage people with ALS around the world to record their voices so they can be digitally recreated.
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