We need help, we need you!

In order to make this project a success we need a motivated team of people that are willing to contribute.

You'll have the opportunity to work on a project that might become awfully usefull for a small group of people and actually enhance the quality of their lives.

We do not only need program developers. Take a look at the list to see the diverse type of tasks that need to fulfilled.

technical & IT
- software architect
- Java programmers
- people who can create installers for different platforms (Win, OSX, Linux)
- interface designers (for a non visual interface especially)
- music specialists (for aural feedback to program functions)
- Java/ Swing expertise
- Java/ USB, serial port expertise
- Graphical designer

knowledge & experience
- therapists who are able to give us expert feedback on what we are desiging
- people who work with impaired people and can share their experience about needs and possibilities.
- people who want to test/ try the software

publicity
- ambassadors, people who spread the word for us and motivate people to help.

News

Nov 1. 2008
The first person offered to help:
- Ronald Lubbers, music professional, will create the sounds necessary for the interface.


Introduction

Speech4Pedro is an open source project that aims to deliver a software communication tool for heavily impaired people. With only a few keys someone will be able to type text by entering morse codes. A speech synthesizer will pronounce their input and guide them through the interface.

Speech4Pedro is targeted at people who are unable or have difficulties to speak, cannot either see or hear and have sensory and motor skills that are insufficient to control a normal keyboard.

Pedro

The spark that iginited this project is one person in particular. His name, as you might have guessed already, is Pedro. The program will be designed to be usable for other people in similar conditions.

Pedro is suffering from mutiple sclerosis (MS) for over two decades. MS is a progressive disease that gradually affects the nervous system. As such, a person with MS is at risk to gradually loose functions (such as sight, speech, muscle control) and over time to become impaired in several, multiple ways.

In an advanced stage of the disease it can become very difficult to communicate. In the case of Pedro he is unable to control a normal keyboard and lost his eyesight to a large extent. Talking becomes increasingly difficult.

Positioning of Speech4Pedro

There are a lot of aids on the market for impaired people. Most of them are targeted to people whith one limitation only. Some others assume limited cognitive skills and facilitate communication only at a simple, rather low level. Often they are closed, stand alone devices that cannot communicate with other programs or computers.

Adaptation to anyone's personal needs tends to be time consuming, expensive and often is subject to permission of insurance companies and cost restrictions.

By creating an open source software product with a thorough architecture I'd like to create a solution that is adaptable, immediately available and that can grow with the experiences and needs of the people it is designed for.

Proof of Concept

Prior to the start of the project I created a small program. This has demonstrated that:

Allthough this software performs some of the needed functions I don't feel it has much value in practice now.

poc

There is a description of the program in program outline.

Timeline & availibility

Speech4Pedro is not available yet.

Everything depends of the people who like to work on the project. It would be nice to have 10 - 20 people working on it with a diverse background. If we are able to reach such a level of engagement it should be possible to release a first version in early 2009.

 

The way we work

We will work with a proper design. Not just code hacking. We will try to get so many people involved that the work will be light for each individual.

About...

I am Jan-Willem Arnold and started this project in November 2008. I have over 15 year of experience in ICT, innovation and project management. See also www.delarte.nl. If you have questions e-mail me at 'jwar xs4all.nl' (place the at-sign at the position of the space).