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Getting your Trinity Audio player ready...
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I caught up last week with Dougherty Valley High seniors Shreyas Sambara and Neel Kondapalli who successfully have launched their speech app, Speech Splendid on the Apple platform. I wrote about them last summer.
The impetus for launching the free app was Sambra’s autistic relative and the high cost of speech therapy for him. The app is designed to provide real time feedback whether to a person struggling with speaking or a person preparing to give a speech or presentation. Both of them remarked they often use the app to “warm up” before their own presentations.
The app is set up to record a video of the presenter. Using a mix of their custom programming and off-the-shelf resources, it’s divided into an audio version and a video. The audio evaluates the speech, looking at the use of filler words and the speed of presentation. They noted that many people speak too fast.
The other aspect measures facial expression for emotions to show presenters how they are coming across to their audience. In our discussion, they rattled off various software program and artificial intelligence apps that flew right over my confused head.
Some AI is built into the app to quickly analyze the video and present feedback and recommendation, although a deeper analysis is available once they’re tied in online. They’ve covered costs out-of-pocket and minimized expenditures while outsourcing what made sense.
They have no plans to try to monetize the app in the short run, although they are thinking about a potential subscription service after a defined number of free uses.
They’re in the busy time of their senior year. Neel likely is headed for Purdue to study computer science, while the options are still open for Shreyas who is interested in linguistics, computer science and aerospace engineering. He also reports for the student newspaper. Those decisions likely will be made in May.
As one who both writes and reads obituaries, I am often struck by just how little I knew about a person that I had regular contact with in one dimension of my life. When I interview a survivor I regularly learn lots about their loved one. For instance, I’d known Dave Gamble for literally decades through our mutual church, but I had no idea that he was a champion quarterback in high school and could really whip a football or baseball around. Thinking about his long, lean body it was easy to imagine.
I learned a bunch last week when a Livermore Rotarian sent me an obit with the sad news that Kevin Drake, a lifetime non-smoker, had died of lung cancer that was stage 4 when it was diagnosed. Kevin grew up in Modesto, was student body president and quarterbacked the football team to an undefeated season and earned all league honors. He went to the University of Pacific and quarterbacked the team there while on a full athletic scholarship.
He then married his high school sweetheart and they started teaching in Livermore where he served until he retired. He coached football and baseball at Livermore High before moving over to Granada where he coached the football team and served as athletic director. He moved into administration at Livermore High as vice-principal and then went back to Granada as principal until he retired after 10 years.
Like others who held senior positions that limited volunteer opportunities, he plunged into Rotary, serving as president and leading the foundation. I saw more of Kevin in this context than I did while at the Tri-Valley Herald. My time in sports preceded his time at Granada and we had infrequent contact while I was running news and he was an administrator. My condolences on the loss of a long-life achiever who served with a great heart for it.
