Common Voice

Common Voice is a project to help make voice recognition open to everyone. Developers need an enormous amount of voice data to build voice recognition technologies, and currently most of that data is expensive and proprietary. We want to make voice data freely and publicly available, and make sure the data represents the diversity of real people. Together we can make voice recognition better for everyone.

Common Voice July 14, 2022

The Politics of Language: The Controversial Origin Story of Kiswahili Sanifu, and Considerations for Building Language Technology

Kiswahili is Africa’s most spoken language and in the top 10 most widely spoken languages in the world. With more than 200 million speakers already, int…

Kathleen Siminyu
Common Voice June 30, 2022

Announcing ‘Our Voices,’ a New Competition by Mozilla to Fight Bias in Voice Technology

Announcing ‘Our Voices,’ a New Competition by Mozilla to Fight Bias in Voice Technology The competition, led by Common Voice, seeks more diverse and inc…

Mozilla
Common Voice June 30, 2022

MCV 'Our Voices' Model and Methods Competition - Taking Part

Mozilla Common Voice will be giving away up to $USD 20,000 in prizes for models and methods that advance diversity and inclusion in the voice tech space

Mozilla Common Voice
Common Voice May 24, 2022

Whose’s calling you in?

Thoughts on the State of Internet Languages Report from the Mozilla Common Voice Team.

Hillary Juma
Common Voice May 20, 2022

Common Voice, Hekaya Arts Initiative Announce Kiswahili Writing Competition Winners

In April, Mozilla’s Common Voice and Hekaya Arts initiative asked Kiswahili literature lovers to write essays inspired by culture, heritage, and social justice themes. The result; 33 entries of creative writing pieces in both fiction and non-fiction categories in Tanzania, Kenya, and Burundi.

Mozilla
Common Voice April 27, 2022

Latest Common Voice Dataset Surpasses 20,000 Hours of Open-Source Speech Data

The April 2022 release also features six new languages, more speech data from female speakers

Mozilla
Common Voice April 20, 2022

Mozilla, UNAM Host Voice Technology Hackathon in Mexico City

Participants will explore how to represent Mixe, Chatino, and other languages in voice technology

Mozilla
Common Voice April 13, 2022

Could you be the next Common Voice Language Rep?

Looking for volunteers who are interested in advocating for their languages experience on Common Voice

Hillary Juma
Common Voice April 12, 2022

Common Voice and Hekaya Arts Initiative Kiswahili Writing Competition

Mozilla’s Common Voice in collaboration with Hekaya Arts Initiative is awarding the top three Kiswahili essay writers with prizes of $400 USD, $250 USD, and $100 USD respectively. The writing competition is part of Mozilla’s Common Voice goal to grow Kiswahili’s open-source data set, enabling the inclusion of local African languages in tech use and development.

Mozilla
Common Voice April 11, 2022

Making Voice AI work better for the languages and accents of Mexico

Three days of panels, and a cash prize hackathon!

Mozilla Common Voice
Common Voice April 5, 2022

Lessons from Building for Kinyarwanda on Common Voice

The Kinyarwanda DeepSpeech Hackathon was held in February saw individuals from the Rwanda technology ecosystem come together and ideate upon the Kinyarw…

Kathleen Siminyu
Common Voice March 3, 2022

Common Voice Announces $400,000 in Awards for Kiswahili Voice Technologies

Mozilla Common Voice is announcing $400,000 USD in grants for voice technologies that leverage our open-source Kiswahili data set. Awards of up to $50,000 each will be given to winning projects in Kenya, Tanzania, and the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Specifically, Common Voice is seeking projects focused on agriculture and finance, and that uplift groups who experience digital exclusion. The initiative will support people and projects across East Africa who are using voice technology to unlock social and economic opportunities.

Mozilla