A bedtime story
is more powerful
than you know.
Research shows that a parent reading to their child determines future success more than family size, parental education or social class. The more stories a child hears, the greater their vocabulary is, the more empathy they develop and the better equipped they are to handle life.
But what about children whose parents do not know how to read? With 43 million low-literate adults in the US and 773 million worldwide, countless children grow up missing out on storytime, putting them at a great disadvantage. On behalf of ProLiteracy, Droga5 and Accenture partnered with Respeecher, a voice cloning company, with the goal of helping all parents, regardless of their reading level, narrate a story in their own voice. With just a phone, any mother or father could share a bedtime story with their kids.
To develop a proof of concept we worked with Felicia, a mother of four who is learning how to read and write at Neuhaus, a member organization of ProLiteracy. First, we made base recordings of a voice actor narrating various children's books. Then we recorded Felicia telling her life story. With machine learning, we matched both audio recordings to authentically recreate Felicia’s voice reciting the children’s books.
Years into motherhood,
Felicia was able to share storytime with her boys for the first time ever.
But what if we pushed this further? What if low-literate parents all over the world could experience what Felicia did? What if with a couple taps in an app, parents could record their voice, select a children’s book and hear themselves tell that story to their children? To volunteer, donate or fundraise and help make impossible bedtime stories possible for all, visit ProLiteracy.org.
Our
Collaborators
ProLiteracy is a nonprofit organization dedicated to bringing literacy to all. It supports a network of programs around the world, such as Neuhaus, a Houston based education center that teaches people of all ages how to read. Both ProLiteracy and Neuhaus have led the field for decades.
Droga5 is an advertising agency owned by Accenture Song with offices in New York, Tokyo, London, São Paolo and Dublin. Never one to follow, since its inception in 2006 it has retained a flair for the unconventional and a taste for innovative work in all conceivable mediums.
Respeecher is a Ukrainian voice cloning tech company. Their signature approach to vocal replication uses AI to learn target voices and swap them with pre recorded audio with unprecedented authenticity. They offer services to everything from video games to blockbuster movies.
SMUGGLER is a commercial, film, TV, theatre, and music video production company representing a roster of award-winning directors with experience across multiple mediums. Since its inception, SMUGGLER has won the most coveted awards, including Emmys, Tonys, Grammys, Cannes Lion Grands Prix, and the Palm d'Or four times. The company has offices in Los Angeles, New York, and London.
Found Objects is an artist collective based in Brooklyn. They’ve scored various award-winning TV shows, movies and branded content. They've collaborated with legendary musicians across the musical spectrum - from Philip Glass to Mark Ronson.