HYDERABAD: With the number of official languages in India running into double digits, Internet companies, mobile manufacturers and others are now focusing on interspeech research to make inroads into the country’s multilingual market.
While big corporations such as Google, Microsoft and Apple among others, and reputed academic institutions such as IIT-Madras and IIIT-Hyderabad are already working on it, ‘The Interspeech Conference’, scheduled to be held in Hyderabad in September, is set to further throw light on this emerging area.
“India is a huge market. Unless Internet companies and mobile phone producers come up with products that can offer all the features and services in regional languages, they will not be able to achieve the scale of growth they target. So, research and innovation in interspeech assume significance. Already, companies are investing large amount of funds in this area and are carrying out research and product developments,” said Murali Bollu, President of Hyderabad Software Exporters Association.
“Though the exact size of business opportunities that interspeech area presents in India is yet to be quantified, it will surely run into billion dollars, in view of the huge Indian population who speak multiple regional languages,” said Vasudeva Varma, Dean, Research, IIIT-Hyderabad.