Abstract 

Globally, over a Billion people cannot read or write any language and over 3 billion are semiliterate. Less than 20% of the global population can read and understand online English web pages on their smartphones. In this talk, we will discuss new emerging technologies of Speech-to-Speech Machine Translation that have the potential to overcome the Literacy Divide and Language Divide, and enable any person to read any book, watch any movie or lecture, and talk to anyone, anywhere in any language.  While technologies exist and have been demonstrated globally, most languages do not yet have the necessary data sets for training such Translation Systems.  While we may have to wait five to ten years to fully realize the potential, future generations can undoubtedly expect to benefit from Speech-to-Speech Machine Translation technologies.

Lecturer

Raj Reddy is a University Professor of Computer Science and Robotics and Moza Bint Nasser Chair in the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University, where he served as the founding Director of the Robotics Institute and as the Dean of the School of Computer Science. He served as co-chair of the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee and has been awarded 13 honorary doctorates. Dr. Reddy is the recipient of the Legion of Honor, Padma Bhushan, Honda Prize, Vannevar Bush Award, and the 1994 Turing Award (jointly with Edward Feigenbaum) “for pioneering the design and construction of large scale artificial intelligence systems, demonstrating the practical importance and potential commercial impact of artificial intelligence technology.”