PISCATAWAY, 31, MAY 2022 – In March of 2021, the VoiceXML Forum, a global industry trade

organization chartered to promote and accelerate the adoption of VoiceXML-based applications awarded two $25,000 grants to worthy recipients.

Today we are pleased to announce the progress of both, Drexel University’s Jina Huh-Yoo’s “Conversational Agent for the Caregivers of Alzheimer’s and Alzheimer’s Related Dementia Patients.” And Sorbonne University’s Catherine Pelachaud and Nicholas Obin’s “Virtual Expressive Agent.”

“The VoiceXML Forum Grant Program has carried forward the spirit of its original mission by issuing two $25,000 grants annually to researchers at non-profit institutions developing new voice technologies or standards,” Paulo Baggia of Nuance said. “Research by the 2021 grant recipients includes the design of conversational agents to support caregivers of Alzheimer’s and dementia patients, and to enhance the quality of human-machine voice interactions. These examples clearly illustrate the lasting relevance and importance of the VoiceXML Forum’s mission.”

Jina Huh-Yoo notes “VoiceXML Forum Grant has allowed us to explore and test possibilities for using highly accessible, phone-based conversational agents that can help with caregivers of patients with dementia. We collaborated with experts (WeCare Advisors) who support the caregivers of individuals with Alzheimer’s disease and Related Dementias (ADRD) through the WeCare program at the College of Nursing and Professions at Drexel University. We developed and tested the prototypes of automating WeCare Advisors’ work of conversing with caregivers over the phone to support the caregiving process. We found where automation can help and where it might be limited. Through this pilot work, the grant helped us to plan the next steps in identifying novel ways to support advisors’ work and the caregiving process. We will continue the work by further developing ways to record and annotate conversations among the stakeholders of individuals with ADRD using the conversational agent technology.”

Catherine Pelachaud and Nicolas Obin state, “As a part of an on-going collaboration between the Science and Technology of Sound and Music lab (STMS lab – Ircam, CNRS, Sorbonne Université, Ministère de la Culture) and the Institute of Intelligent Systems and Robotics (ISIR – CNRS, Sorbonne Université), the VoiceXML Forum grant has allowed us to enhance the acoustic and visual expressivity of virtual agents controlled by the GRETA platform. We have developed models to generate expressive speech synthesis and agent animation driven by speech. The VoiceXML tags are added to the text to be said by the agent. They are sent to speech synthesizers as well as to the GRETA platform. In particular the focus is on paralinguistic fillers.”

To read more detailed progress of their work, please visit www.voicexml.org

About The VoiceXML Forum 

Founded in 1999,the VoiceXML Forum is an industry organization whose mission is to promote and to accelerate the worldwide adoption of VoiceXML-based applications. The Forum served as an educational and technical resource, a certification authority and a contributor and liaison to international standards bodies.  The VoiceXML Forum is organized as a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (IEEE-ISTO). The Forum dissolves May 2022 after successfully achieving its mission.

Please send all media inquiries to Katherine.valenti@ieee-isto.org

PISCATAWAY, 31 MAY 2022 – After 23 years and the fulfillment of their mission, the members of The VoiceXML Forum have agreed to dissolve the organization effective 31 May 2022.

The VoiceXML Forum has accomplished much over their years of operation and has been a leading global industry organization that worked to accelerate the adoption of VoiceXML and adjacent technologies.

The VoiceXML Forum has strived to certify the conformance of VoiceXML platforms to the VoiceXML standard, helping to ensure the interoperability of VoiceXML platforms, tools, and applications. They have also collaborated with standards organizations and other industry consortia, such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) and the IETF.

“The VoiceXML Forum began as a small group of companies that shared a vision to improve the way voice applications are built and grew to more than 100 companies,” said Rob Marchand, Forum board member and senior director at Genesys. “Along the way, it fostered the development and adoption of open standards that would shape an entire industry. I want to thank the companies and individuals who contributed to the success over the years without whom any of this would be possible.”

Throughout their tenure, the VoiceXML Forum has created publications, best practices and use cases for application by the industry.

“The sheer number of companies and users worldwide who benefit from voice technology every day is a testament to the Forum’s success in defining and promoting VoiceXML standards over the past 20+ years,” said Paolo Baggia, VoiceXML Forum board member and director of International Standards at Nuance. “The dedicated work by Forum members enabled the creation of scores of voice-driven applications like package tracking, driving directions, voice dialing and many others that we take for granted today.”

Although the Forum is disbanding, the VoiceXML website will still stay active and will host all past work product – /

“The value of the VoiceXML Forum goes far beyond the standards development and testing its members performed,” said Baggia. “While the active work winds down, the Forum’s technical resources and publications will continue to be available on the VoiceXML website to inform current and future development of new conversational AI applications for cybersecurity, healthcare, customer service and other areas.”

About The VoiceXML Forum 

Founded in 1999, the VoiceXML Forum is an industry organization whose mission is to promote and to accelerate the worldwide adoption of VoiceXML-based applications. The Forum served as an educational and technical resource, a certification authority and a contributor and liaison to international standards bodies.  The VoiceXML Forum is organized as a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization(IEEE-ISTO). The Forum dissolved in May 2022 after successfully achieving its mission.

The first award will go to Jina Huh-Yoo, Assistant Professor at Drexel University for her proposal “VoiceXML-based Conversational Agent for the Caregivers of Alzheimer’s and Alzheimer’s Related Dementia Patients.” This grant will fund the ability to design and evaluate a phone-based conversational agent that will support caregivers to confidently seek tailored strategies on caregiving for people living with these types of disabilities through iterative conversations with the agent.

VoiceXML Board Member Paolo Baggia of Nuance Communications said, “After twenty years, VoiceXML standard infrastructures are still a pillar of Conversational Agent creation. The development of relevant and useful VoiceXML innovations, such as Professor Huh-Yoo’s caregiver assistance application, continue to make a difference in our world.”

The second award will go to Catherine Pelachaud, Director of Research from Sorbonne University & Nicholas Obin, Associate Professor, Ircam – Sorbonne University for their proposal “Virtual Expressive Agent.” This agent will attempt to enhance the quality of the interaction of the human experience between human and machine by synthesizing modalities of expression through gestures, as well as speech prosody.

Dr. Valentine Matula, Board Member with Avaya, noted that “The Virtual Expressive Agent project has a goal of capturing, specifying, and then recreating expressive aspects of human communication via extended markup languages. This clearly expands on the goals of the original VoiceXML effort–and thus was seen as deserving of the VoiceXML Forum’s support via this grant.”

In addition, Board Member Rob Marchand of Genesys, noted that “The VoiceXML Forum is pleased to contribute to continued exploration of innovative voice related technologies and applications through the award of these grants in support of the two selected proposals.”

The VoiceXML Forum congratulates all winners on this achievement.

About the VoiceXML Forum

Founded in 1999, the VoiceXML Forum is an industry organization whose mission is to promote and to accelerate the worldwide adoption of VoiceXML-based applications. The Forum serves as an educational and technical resource, a certification authority and a contributor and liaison to international standards bodies, such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) IETF, ANSI and ISO. The VoiceXML Forum is organized as a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (IEEE-ISTO). Membership in the Forum is open to any interested company. For more information, please visit the Website at www.voicexml.org.

Please send all media inquiries to Katherine.valenti@ieee-isto.org  

The VoiceXML Forum will issue two separate $25,000 grants to an individual, or group of individuals affiliated with a not-for-profit institution for an initiative or alliance championing new technology or standards in the area of Voice Technology that continues to display the spirit of the VoiceXML Forum’s original mission.

“We are excited to be able to solicit grant proposals from active research individuals or teams for their groundbreaking work in voice technology and/or its standards. With the ability to fund two separate grants, we believe we will be able to help two programs move forward in their research endeavors,” said VoiceXML Forum Board Member Dr. Valentine Matula of Avaya.

The VoiceXML Grant Program is now open for proposal submissions, and will remain open through December 31, 2020. All interested parties can submit proposals for consideration here: www.voicexml.org/grant

“When the Forum started to promote VoiceXML, the voice adoption was in its infancy. Today, with the advent of the standards, it is widely used in our lives, and it will continue to evolve in the future,” said VoiceXML Forum Board Member Paolo Baggia of Nuance Communications, Inc.

In addition, Board Member Robert Marchand of Genesys noted that “The VoiceXML Forum is thrilled to continue to support the development of open standards related to voice technologies. The success of VoiceXML and related standards is largely due to efforts and contributions from the educational and research communities.”

About the VoiceXML Forum

Founded in 1999, the VoiceXML Forum is an industry organization whose mission is to promote and to accelerate the worldwide adoption of VoiceXML-based applications. The Forum serves as an educational and technical resource, a certification authority and a contributor and liaison to international standards bodies, such as the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) IETF, ANSI and ISO. The VoiceXML Forum is organized as a program of the IEEE Industry Standards and Technology Organization (IEEE-ISTO). Membership in the Forum is open to any interested company. For more information, please visit the Website at www.voicexml.org.