The aim of the Mycroft.eus project is to develop a smart speaker that will be able to understand and speak Basque. To this end, Elhuyar, Skura and Talaios will adapt the Mycroft AI free software device, improving and integrating Elhuyar's two systems: speech knowledge and synthesis, both of which have been developed based on artificial intelligence and Deep Learning technology.

In order for the Basque language to be strong in the digital field, the knowledge, expertise and collaboration of various actors are essential. The aim of this project is to bring together the forces of organizations that are working in the same direction to develop cutting-edge technology, with the support and backing of the administration.

This one-year project has received the support of the Gipuzkoa Provincial Council's Etorkizuna Eraikiz initiative, as well as the support of the Basque Government's Hazitek program to promote business R&D. The City Council of Errenteria will leave the Torrekua building to develop the project. The Torrekua building is currently networking the social economy relationships and free technology developments needed to develop technology independence strategies around a number of projects.

To measure the importance of the project, the support and assistance it has received in Europe is significant. Among the 110 projects from all over Europe submitted to the European Language Grid European call for proposals, Mycroft.eus was the only one selected in the administrative area of ​​Spain and France. They want to build a large European technological infrastructure to promote language technologies, while also supporting low-resource languages.

Although this project is experimental in nature, it is expected to have a fully functional intelligent Basque speaker within a year at the end of the research and development process. The new speaker is an ambitious project: it will ensure the privacy of users, and will have a proper gender perspective embedded. In addition, the knowledge and synthesis of Elhuyar's voice will be adapted to the domain of speakers, and local skills will be developed so that Basque speakers can prioritize news, music and shopping in the Basque Country.

The European Language Grid, ELG, will host the MetaForum conference from 1 to 3 December. The 2020 edition will be virtual and will include a poster session to present projects selected and funded by the ELG to the language technology community. The Mycroft.eus project will be one of them. Participants in this year's MetaForum congress will therefore have the opportunity to learn the details of a smart speaker in Basque.

What you want to achieve

The aim of this project is to develop a smart speaker in Basque, so that more and more current users (children and young people, to a large extent) of such devices can use this technology in Basque.

To get a smart speaker in Basque, the Mycroft AI free software smart speaker will be adapted to understand and speak Basque. Being free software, it is possible to add and change things, so they will add the ability to do it in Basque. In order to obtain the knowledge and synthesis of the speech required by the tools, the Elhuyar Foundation will use the language technology applied to Basque. Finally, to improve speech knowledge and synthesis, they will use a technology called Artificial Intelligence and Deep Learning.