Canary Speech has partnered with the non-profit Veteran Business Project to provide veteran entrepreneurs with what they need to manage their mental health by using cutting edge AI-enabled speech analysis software.
Marine veteran and CEO of Veteran Business Project Lynn Lowder said what really excited VBP about the technology available through Canary Speech is the ease by which a veteran can speak for 40 seconds into their phone and within a few seconds get indicators that “there might be something they want to look into, depression, that type of thing. This is revolutionary in my view.”
During a recent media roundtable, Lowder said the objective of the partnership is to allow veterans to focus on their business objectives while managing their mental health.
CEO of Canary Speech Henry O’Connell said conversational speech is coupled with biomarker technology and analyzed to give veterans real-time insights into their stress, mood, and energy levels.
“They simply talk,” he said. “They have a conversation in an ambient way with their spouse, with their partner. Canary is capable of analyzing that in milliseconds of time and returning
scores on different elements.”
The process is anonymous and confidential, Lowder continued.
“Veterans when they come out are looking for people they trust and entities they can trust,” he said. “There’s never been anything like this.”
Feedback about the technology has been positive, added Lowder.
“I’m a special operations combat veteran from the Vietnam era,” he continued. “I wish we would have had today’s speech technology a few decades ago. I think it could have been extremely helpful.”
Veteran Business Project is a non-profit that matches veterans and military spouses who are looking to be entrepreneurs with existing businesses that are looking to sell.
“One of the things that is important for our veterans in particular coming off active duty is we want to make sure they are match-ready for this undertaking,” explained Lowder.
The technology can be used as often as the user wishes and data can be compared to past results as often as the user likes. Lowder said he uses the technology himself.
“We’re going to have, veterans I think, who want to take a peek under the hood and see scenarios of their mental capacity and status they might want to be looking at,” he said.
O’Connell said veterans often endure a lot more stress before they say “oww.”
“It’s information for them, it’s information that’s confidential and private with a look into their lives that they can capture easily,” he said. “I do it every day. It was developed in clinical environments. We deploy it in hospitals and clinics both here and in Europe and in Japan.”
Canary Speech has nine patents related to vocal biomarkers and the speech app can be downloaded in both the Apple and Google stores.
Reach Julia LeDoux at Julia@connectingvets.com.