Commemorating the International Mother Language Day, artificial intelligence-based Bangla language software ‘Bangla Text to Speech –Uchcharon’, ‘Bangla Speech to Text –Kotha’ and Bengali OCR ‘Borna’ were launched on Wednesday.

A new Bangla font ‘Purno’ began its journey during the occasion.

State Minister for Posts, Telecommunications, and Information Technology Zunaid Ahmed Palak launched them on Wednesday.

He also launched e-SIM for Teltalk in the event held at the BCC Auditorium in Dhaka.

The ICT state minister said that the launch of the software is a historic event for Bangla and for the 35 crore Bangla-speaking people across the world.

He said that a new dimension has been added to the development of the Bangla language under the leadership of Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina using smart technology.

The state minister said that February 21 is a proud segment of the national history and also for the development of art, literature and culture.

Bengali text-to-speech “Uchcharon” is a TTS software. The technology used to convert text into spoken words by a machine is called TTS or text-to-speech applications. TTS can read text in documents, websites, and screen windows.

At the same time, it can read aloud to the visually impaired people. The software has both male and female voices. Currently, the software can be used from the address read.bangla.gov.bd.

“Katha” is Bengali voice typing software. Voice typing or “speech to text” is the technique of writing words into a computer. It can convert spoken Bengali words to text in standard clear and quiet environments.

The final version of the software can record Bengali major punctuation marks. The software can be used as a web application from the browser by entering the address voice.bangla.gov.bd.

Also, there is an opportunity to use this voice typing service through the Keyboard Android app developed by the project.

The name of Bengali OCR is “Barno”. OCR is used to convert un-editable text in computer documents into editable text. OCR is converting text in PDF or JPEG files to editable text. This character OCRT converts Bangla text into text similar to composed text.