Phonexis

International Literacy and Development

Phonexis

Phonexis is an intuitive & powerful app tailored for linguistic data collection & project management within global low-resource language communities.

Dallas, TX, USA

United States

Nonprofit

We are trying to solve the difficulty and expense associated with collecting and maintaining linguistic data for low-resource languages. This is important to solve because it is the root of many problems: High expense and difficulty in collection leads to a data shortage Neural machine translation (NMT) models cannot be trained without data Language communities lacking NMT are unable to access the global information economy Languages without data collection are in danger of extinction Collecting and maintaining linguistic data is difficult and expensive because: It requires technical expertise NMT training demands a lot of data Data collection involves audio field recording, transcription, and translation steps Our project works directly with the Beja people in northern Sudan for better access to medical diagnosis translation to encourage increased access to healthcare and ensure better health outcomes. Currently, a Beja individual seeking medical diagnosis must travel to Cairo to receive a diagnosis in Arabic then wait two additional weeks for a translation appointment so they can understand their diagnosis and treatment recommendations. Many Beja choose to put off seeking medical care rather than be away from their home for that long. Access to automated translation tools would improve their access to healthcare.

Phonexis is an accessible web and mobile app for sourcing linguistic data and managing related projects. Project-Based Web App Phonexis’ intuitive frontend: Record and upload data Transcribe audio Translate Review and rate submissions from other users Clean up data Phonexis’ project management tools: Per-user recording, translation, transcription, and review for each data entry Conflicts are auto-flagged for review, with automated resolution User dashboard: Gamified progress goals Comprehensive contribution stats Individual earnings reports Project admin dashboard: User contributions tracking Payout reports Overall project progress tracking Active Reporting: Audio file analysis Semantic domain coverage Transcription quality Translation quality Phonexis’ data server backend algorithm analyzes project progress and balances data collection, transcription, translation, and review tasks. It automates processes to accelerate data collection and reduce time-to-NMT, such as: Automated Speech Recognition (ASR) Audio chunking Transcription checking Coverage analysis Impact & Reach Phonexis is used by teams working with Rohingya refugees (Dallas) and Beja people (Sudan). Potential reach includes anyone in or working with the millions of people of the 7000+ low-resource language communities around the globe. Explore Phonexis https://phonexis.com/

Phonexis is designed for and with: our community team working with Rohingya refugees in Dallas our partner organization Tru Blue Red Sea LLC working directly with the Beja of northern Sudan Community teams have identified a problem with a solution enabled by machine translation. A visual oral translation app would allow users to take pictures of documents written in a language of wider communication (LWC). The app would provide spoken summary of a document’s contents in a user’s chosen language. For the Rohingya, the goal is to promote better educational outcomes by enabling parents to understand and engage with educational communications from their child’s school. For the Beja, the goal is to promote better access to and quality of health services by reducing the excessive wait time needed to obtain an understandable medical diagnosis. The community teams have limited personnel, and the quantity of work is great. Any level of effective automation, organizational tools, or project management that can reduce their workload or multiply their efforts is a welcome addition to their process. Phonexis provides these tools and more, with insights into the tasks their workers are doing in pursuit of the above goals.