COVID Negative & Positive Voices WANTED! AI-powered COVIDvoice Screening Tool Needs You

    ATLANTA, GA, January 18, 2021 /24-7PressRelease/ -- To complete research and take a novel COVID-19 screening tool prototype to completion, tens of thousands more voice recordings are needed to finalize the voice-based AI-automated COVID-19 screening tool. The ask is simple: visit the http://covidvoice.net/ website, take 15 seconds to record the short scripted prompt, then repeat this process two more times.

In the spirit of #InThisTogether, BRAVE Innovations strives to gather thousands more voiceprint samples that will help refine their app that can immediately identify if a person is likely to have been infected with COVID-19.

"This is both a numbers game and a race against time to analyze thousands of voice prints from people who have tested positive, negative or recovered from COVID-19," explains BRAVE Innovations CEO and Chief Research Officer Bruce Walker, Ph.D.

To slow the community spread and ultimately crush the pandemic, citizens need easy access to quick and effective screening methods. By listening for specific vocal changes, BRAVE Innovation's COVIDvoice will be able to detect if a voice donor has COVID-19. This will act as an early warning system for donors who provide contact information, and will help us get our schools, teams, and communities back together, safely.

When finalized, the BRAVE Innovations voice-based COVID screening tool will be available at no cost to schools, colleges, universities, daycares, community organizations, clubs, associations, amateur sports organizations, churches and houses of worship anywhere in the world.

Because COVID-19 distresses numerous systems in the body, including the lungs, vocal cords, and neural signals from the brain, it affects speech. Detecting subtle voice changes can aid in the identification of those who may have unknowingly contracted the virus. This is particularly important because, according to the CDC, asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people who are contagious are estimated to account for more than 50 percent of transmissions.

BRAVE Innovations' Founder and CEO is Bruce N. Walker, Ph.D., a professor at Georgia Institute of Technology with joint appointments in the School of Psychology and the School of Interactive Computing. Dr. Walker is also a member of the GVU Center, and Associate Director of the GT Masters Program in HCI (MS-HCI). He completed his Ph.D. at Rice University in Psychology (Human Factors and Human-Computer Interaction).

All voice samples, with any other information provided, are stored securely and safely, and used only for research purposes. All volunteers who sign up to contribute voice samples can learn about their voiceprint and have it monitored for changes.

For information about the groundbreaking AI technology at the heart of this project visit http://covidvoice.net/

The COVIDvoice Project - http://covidvoice.net/ - is a public-private partnership, bringing together the brightest minds from the fields of AI, voice research, medicine, psychology, and technology. Technology development is being led by BRAVE Innovations (www.BRAVEinnovations.ai) with technical support from the Applied Bioinformatics Laboratory (www.ABiL.ihrc.com), a collaboration between ASRT, Inc., IHRC, Inc., and Georgia Tech's Bioinformatics Graduate Program.

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