Project Understood
Award: Graphite Pencil
Graphite Pencil / Digital / Creative Use of AI / 2020
Award: Wood Pencil
Wood Pencil / Digital / Creative Use of Technology
Award: Shortlist
Shortlist / Impact / Design/Brands
Award: Shortlist
Shortlist / Direct / Direct Response/Digital
The future will be voice-first, but that future doesn’t include people with Down syndrome. Because they have atypical speech, Google’s voice assistant currently misunderstands one in every three words they speak. Introducing Project Understood, a campaign that turns people with Down syndrome into Google’s teachers, using their voices to train Google’s speech recognition model. Results: 826,107 organic reach on Facebook, with just $1,000 in media across 30+ countries, and 735 Down syndrome organisations have joined. Over one million phrases are being added to Google’s speech recognition database
What did the judges have to say?
It’s not only a creative use of technology, it’s also an important use of technology.
Shula Sinclair, Global Head of Strategy, Spark Foundry