As a research group its activities are focussed on the creation and use of speech technologies and the study of the underlying machine learning principles. The group furthermore has a specific interest in deep learning techniques and the application thereof in various domains, including speech and language processing.
At the heart of the group you will find engineers and computer scientists actively involved in speech technology and pattern recognition research in collaboration with experts from around the world. MuST is as such widely regarded as an active partner in various local and international research projects, working alongside partners and clients from industry, government, and NGOs.
The group enjoys a long history of developing speech technologies for the lesser-resourced languages of the world. Although the applications it develops focus mostly on South African languages, the group has worked on 26 different lesser-resourced languages as part of the US IARPA Babel project, including diverse languages such as Amharic, Dholuo, Igbo, Javanese, Kurdish and Mongolian.
Other research collaborations
In 2016, MuST collaborated with Google to create new South African voices speaking four South African languages: Sesotho, isiXhosa, English and Afrikaans. It also recently completed the development work on a speech transcription platform from South African languages. The project was executed in close consultation with the reporting unit of National Parliament, and includes workflow management and various text and speech processing features, including automatic speech recognition.
Faculty of Engineering – a natural fit
When considering the current engineering research projects, MuST was a natural fit with the Faculty of Engineering. The senior research staff in MuST all have an engineering background, with formal PhD qualifications in electronic and computer engineering. As MuST delivers postgraduate rather than undergraduate students, the partnership with the Faculty of Engineering provides them with access to students with exposure to the appropriate undergraduate syllabus. In turn, the faculty gets to collaborate on high-profile research projects, new sources of research topics and funding, and a unique network of collaborators.
Contact MuST
For more information contact Ms Ulrike Janke, MuST operations manager, on 028 312 1907 or Ulrike.janke@nwu.ac.za
*The research group previously resided within the Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences. MuST is the NWU node of the Centre for Artificial Research (CAIR), a national research network hosted by the CSIR and mostly funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DST
