When Danny Weissberg's grandmother was overcome by a stroke 10 years ago, she lost the ability to speak intelligibly, and their family lost the primary way to communicate with its matriarch.
In the wake of his grandmother's sudden impairment, the young engineer resolved he'd find a way to help.
The result is Voiceitt, a Tel Aviv-based startup that has developed deep learning, signal processing and customizable speech recognition technologies to provide a synthesized voice for those whose speech has been garbled.
The beneficiaries won't just be Weissberg's grandmother, of course. Each year, millions of people have their speech impaired due to strokes and aneurysms, diseases such as cerebral palsy and Parkinson's, brain injuries from accidents, and other medical conditions.
Earlier this month, the 16 employee-strong company was one of eight finalists in NVIDIA's GTC Israel Inception awards competition to find the country's best AI startup. The same week, it won a $1.5 million grant from VentureClash, a global venture competition backed by the state of Connecticut.
Voiceitt's first product is a mobile app that converts non-standard language into readily understood speech. It's already in beta testing with more than 200 users in four different languages.
The company is also working to integrate its software with voice-driven technology such as Amazon's voice assistant Alexa. The goal is to allow individuals who normally require assistance to take control of their own needs - turning on lights, controlling the TV and asking for basic information, for example.
As the world becomes more and more voice enabled, speech recognition becomes such an important thing in our life, said Weissberg, a software developer with a master's degree in philosophy. It will be a basic human right to have accessibility to this technology.
The Voiceitt team. At the heart of Voiceitt's offerings are deep learning algorithms, which are trained on a limited vocabulary of up to 80 calibrated words or phrases. Adding to the challenge is the sparsity of data - due to the difficulty of obtaining language samples. The model is then fine-tuned for each user because speech patterns are unique to each individual and their condition.
Everyone's impairment is different, but there are certain similarities within a particular group of speech impairments, said Stas Tiomkin, Voiceitt's co-founder and CTO. We work very hard to collect speech samples and build a generic acoustic model that then gets customized.
Among those Voiceitt is helping are a 17-year-old New York woman who, following a harrowing auto accident, is wheelchair-bound and has severely impaired speech. Another user's disabilities confine him to a wheelchair, but he plans to use the app at a fast food restaurant, taking drive-through orders. A middle-aged Israeli man with cerebral palsy uses the technology to help control his television.
Voiceitt has begun licensing its app to institutions and is working on deals with manufacturers that could integrate the tool into smart speakers.
While other language assistance devices require pointing with a device or detect glances, Voiceitt offers a more natural way to communicate. Tiomkin points out that, according to speech and language pathologists, there is evidence that engaging in conversation can help develop brain functioning and improve speech.
In that sense, this isn't just an application for communication, it's a therapy, Tiomkin says.
Voiceitt's next frontier is enabling speech detection with a far broader range of vocabulary, so that it could render free-form conversation fully intelligible.
The company estimates that there are 100 million individuals worldwide who can't communicate and be understood with their voices. But they see the market as potentially far larger. At least 5 percent of individuals can't use voice-enabled AI devices due to disabilities, strong accents or age, including an estimated 8 percent of those over the age of 65.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
13/05/2026
New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Joel Pennington May 13, 2026
0 Comments
New NVIDIA RTX-accelerated features streamlin...
13/05/2026
Grass Valley announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside broadcast (OB) trucks for Cloudbass, featuring Grass Valley LDX 100 Series cameras a...
13/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast production cameras, control units, viewfinders and monitors on stand 5D3-1 at Broadcast...
13/05/2026
FISE, working with the founding members of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA), Accedo, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and HBS, have collaborated to develop an immersive...
13/05/2026
Canon Unveils New EOS R6 V Full-Frame EOS Camera and RF20-50mm F4 L IS USM PZ Bu...
13/05/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Honors Beth Morrison and Moses Pendleton at Comme...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
13/05/2026
A definitive portrait of one of Ireland's most influential musicians
New TV documentary airs Monday 18 May on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
Watch the...
13/05/2026
Agentic AI is changing the way users get work done. Following the success of OpenClaw, the community is embracing new open source agentic frameworks. The latest...
13/05/2026
Reinforcement-learning agents - AI systems that learn by trial and error - can c...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
When Danny Weissberg's grandmother was overcome by a stroke 10 years ago, she lost the ability to speak intelligibly, and their family lost the primary way to communicate with its matriarch.
