How a Pittsburgh-area man developed an app that's giving people with ALS their voice back
A Pittsburgh-area man is not just giving people living with ALS a voice, he's giving them their own voice.
A recent diagnosis just inspired a man with no coding experience to develop a life-changing app. It'll allow people who are struggling to speak sound more like themselves.
David Betts lives in Mt. Washington with his wife Anna, who was diagnosed with ALS at 57.
"Admittedly, I was terrified and I still am but Anna always tells me I'm the most rational person because I'm a consultant and now I have a problem to solve," he said.
Betts thought all the assistive tools and apps on the market sounded too robotic. So with zero coding experience and no time to waste, he created "Talk to Me, Goose!", named after the character Goose from "Top Gun." It's an AI-powered text-to-speech app that uses voice cloning to help people with speech loss sound like themselves again.
"If I can make something with no experience as a developer, sitting on my couch, in 80 days, and release it to the world, and then in nine months build it on Windows and Android and iOS that I think has capabilities of what's available, why have they not done it?" he said. "And why are we asking people to settle for less far less than what's possible?"
He's partnering with the nonprofit Live Like Lou to make it free for people living with ALS, but also Parkinson's, strokes, head and neck cancer.
"While I focus on ALS for obvious reasons, there's, we think, 97 million people living around the world with speech-limiting conditions who would benefit from assistive tech who lack access," he said.
Users can create a voice clone with as little as 45 seconds of audio. It's giving people not just the ability to talk, but to connect. The app also lets people create and tell bedtime stories in their own voice. That was an idea born from a message from a 41-year-old father living with ALS, no longer able to read to his little kids.
"She said they sat rapt with attention, and then their youngest said 'I want daddy to tell that story 100, 100 times forever," he said.
From bedtime stories to the Austrian Parliament, the app's getting attention. It just won the Zero Award for reducing barriers for people living with disabilities.
And even though Betts never thought his story would include this, his own father's voice speaks clearly in his mind.
"He always said he didn't care what we did when we grew up. 'I don't care if you're a plumber, you're an electrician, you're a janitor, you're the world's best surgeon, just be your best, do your best."
