Mycroft is going global. Next week our CEO, Joshua Montgomery, is beginning a series of talks around international language support and community building. We’re at nine cities and counting! If you want Mycroft to come by your area, get in touch! We would love help in coordinating event locations and recruiting community members to get excited about Mycroft.

A diverse and international community is invaluable to a voice assistant. Just by using Mycroft and Opting-In, we gain various accents to improve Wake Word spotting and STT. Exposing the technology to more people worldwide builds a base who can translate Mycroft into their local languages.

If you live in or near an upcoming city and can help arrange an event, spread the word, or just want to know when plans finalize, please fill out the form or reach out to us at hello@mycroft.ai.

Scheduled events:

Check back soon!

Edinburgh – Coming soon!

Past events:

Reykjavik – August 8, August 9 – Recap

Vienna – August 12, August 13 – Recap

Amsterdam – August 29 – Recap

Berlin – September 12 – Recap

Paris – September 18, September 19 – Recap

Madrid – October 5, October 8 – Recap

Lisbon – October 23, October 24 – Recap Soon!

Barcelona – November 5, November 6 – Recap Soon!

London – November 14, November 15 – Recap Soon!

Please check back for locations and more information.

How Mycroft Learns a New Language

We’ve published a blog on everything that’s needed to make a voice assistant speak a new language. The last post was a high-level and technical overview. We’ve got some updates now:

We’re putting the finishing touches on a translation suite that will let skills and dialogue be translated from one language to another.

For STT, voice.mozilla.org is now collecting recordings in 15 languages and localizing for another 20.

For TTS, our Mimic suite for collecting recordings and training a voice is coming soon.

To make use of these systems for internationalization, we benefit from recruiting contributors for translation, voice recording, and coordinating local tech communities excited about voice.

Introductions to groups are also appreciated. We would love to work with local companies who could use a voice assistant who speaks the local language, and any educational institutions and governments with interest in preserving and utilizing the local language.

In addition to the events for local language support, Joshua will be presenting on early-stage startup fundraising. If you or someone you know would like to learn how we’ve used crowdfunding to build Mycroft from an idea in a makerspace to an international company building a large open source voice project, let us know.

Help Mycroft Go Global!