Speech connects: 20 years voice INTER connect

Fascination for speech technology, entrepreneurial spirit and the vision to revolutionise human-machine communication with voice control: This gave birth to voice INTER connect in 2001. In autumn, the company celebrated its 20th anniversary with a technology workshop and looked back with its customers and partners on successful projects around hands-free speaking, speech recognition and voice control as well as building communication. Only recently, voice INTER connect presented its latest module vicCOM IP, with which OEM manufacturers can develop individual IP-based intercom stations and intercom solutions quickly, easily and at manageable development costs - optimally adaptable to numerous areas of use and applications.

"Speech connects" was the motto with which two freshly graduated PhDs of information technology, a graduate in industrial engineering and their academic mentor won a business plan competition in 2000. They took the opportunity and founded voice INTER connect under  optimal conditions. The basis of their business idea: the patented associative dynamic speech recogniser (ASD), a particularly resource-saving speech recognition approach. Even then, it combined dynamic time warping with a neural network for feature extraction - a technology that is being used again in modern AI systems and shows how innovative voice INTER connect was with its first speech recogniser verbKEY.

Over the years, the voice INTER connect team has grown continuously and now includes experts in hardware and software development, signal and speech processing algorithms, AI, acoustics and ergonomics. In the meantime, voice INTER connect can look back on a renowned customer base of national and international companies, such as for Siemens, Continental, Telekom, Jung or Whirlpool and has developed hands-free devices for the automotive industry, solutions for building communication and voice controls for household appliances and industrial applications. Some highlights were the sensor technology for obstacle detection for one of the first functioning hoover robots and a voice-controlled fully automatic coffee machine - already in 2010 and thus long before Siri, Alexa and co.

With the customer projects and continuous research and development work, voice INTER connect added services for acoustic measurements to its algorithm library, the hardware-based voice control vicCONTROL DSP and finally the first own hardware modules of the vicCOM family for intercom solutions. Today, the range of hardware and software is divided into the areas of signal processing, communication and speech control and includes the development and production of customer-specific solutions paired with individual services. The intelligent electronic modules are incorporated as the core of the customer's product and drastically reduce development time and technological risk. In particular, voice INTER connect addresses the four target markets of commercial vehicles, medical technology, intercom and automation.

During the ceremony, Dr.-Ing. Diane Hirschfeld, founder and CEO of voice INTER connect, said: "For twenty years now, we have been on the road with the vision of improving the dialogue between people on the one hand and between man and machine on the other, and of increasing work productivity in applications such as commercial vehicles, automation and medical technology with our technologies and products. Speech connects and overcomes distances, both in the physical and human sense. We look forward to the next 20 years and feel more prepared than ever to launch into a successful future together with our employees, customers and suppliers."