AIMPOWER

Accessible Communication Technology for People Who Stutter. In 2024, our organization continued its mission-driven work in the research, design, and development of stuttering-friendly communication technologies. This includes accessible videoconferencing tools and speech AI systems tailored to the needs of people who stutter. We conducted extensive user research to identify how existing technologies create barriers for this community - particularly due to poor support for disfluent speech and nonverbal communication cues. Our team engaged individuals who stutter in co-design processes to collaboratively develop technical solutions. As a result, we began prototyping several key tools, including a Zoom add-on designed to improve communication accessibility, a new dataset of stuttered speech for training AI models, and an automatic speech recognition (ASR) model with improved transcription accuracy for disfluent speech compared to existing off-the-shelf ASR models. To maximize the reach and impact of our work, we have published our research and technical outputs in leading academic conferences and made our tools available through open-source platforms. These efforts promote inclusive design, advance the field of accessible technology, and foster collaboration across research and community sectors.

Mentorship and educational program. In 2024, we provided mentorship and educational outreach to students in technical fields, focusing on community-centric, socially conscious technology that is inclusive by design. Our team delivered guest lectures on AI fairness and accessibility at local schools and universities, and mentored over two dozen students from local high schools and leading universities through master's projects and year-round internships. AImpower staff and senior volunteers guided students in UX design, HCI research, software engineering, machine learning, and AI, through public-interest projects such as inclusive videoconferencing tools and equitable speech AI for people who stutter. This program deepens our collaboration with educational institutions and empowers the next generation of technologists to design accessible, socially responsible technology. The program is fully operated by AImpower volunteers and staff donating their time.