Patch Gets To Know Spoken

MARIETTA, OH — When most people think of Marietta, they don’t think of big tech. This is only because they haven’t heard of companies like Spoken. Spoken is a company located in the heart of Downtown Marietta that develops technology to help people who have trouble speaking.

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Michael Bond is the founder of Spoken, and he says their tech can help people speak again. “Whether it be people like Stephen Hawking or people who have lost their ability to speak through a stroke or even people this year who are coming off of ventilators because of COVID.”

Spoken’s main platform is their app, available for download on both Android and iPhone. Bond says the app helps people speak the words they want to speak and helps with next-word predictions. “A lot of speech disabilities and being able to talk faster is to be able to quickly get those words in a row.” He compared his app to a supercharged version of your phone’s auto-complete.

As far as how their tech helps COVID-19 patients? Bond says they never planned on it, but they’ve been able to help victims of the pandemic. “When you come off of ventilators, it leaves your throat in such a shape, some people can’t speak for weeks.” He says this is just one example of how their technology is being used in unforeseen ways. “We went out to solve a very specific problem, and it’s great to see how people are being able to apply it in ways we never even thought of.”

Bond says in a short period of time they’ve been able to see big results. There have been over 10,000 downloads in their first year. He says they get emails from people in England, New Zealand, and around the world. He and his friends jokingly refer to Marietta as “Silicon Holler.”

Bond says there’s no reason someone couldn’t run a giant tech company out of somewhere like Marietta, but there are a few roadblocks. Roadblocks that don’t exist in places like Silicon Valley and Austin, TX. “Groups of companies together, trading employees, training other people, where people can get experience.” He says without more opportunities straight out of college to get the experience, it’s hard to get to that next level. “You can see where we lack as a community, but also how close we can get.”

Sky’s the limit for this burgeoning tech company in Marietta’s downtown. They’re reporting a sustained 20% monthly growth. Their average daily users continue to climb. Bond says one big thing they’re working on is expanding into other languages. “Often underserved populations. People who speak English have a lot more tools at their disposal than people who speak, say, Portuguese. The needs for these tools are becoming greater and greater.”

Bond says we’re at the point where tech like this is a priority is because of the advances in modern medicine. As the rest of the world catches up to us, this will become a priority for countries in Latin America and Asia. So Bond’s trying to get in front of the issue and get Spoken ready to go in as many other languages as is possible. “The more of the world we can reach out to the better we’ll be.”

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