Speech-to-text Technology: Tales of just another knackered Software Developer (Innovative Ideas Challenge)

#hackwithdg #ai #deepgram #hackathon

Introduction

When I recieved the newsletter announcing the commencement of the Deepgram hackathon on DEV, I was super excited. I had always had a plethora of innovative ideas on how speech-to-text technology could help a number of people and that was why I decided to participate in the Innovative Ideas category of the Deepgram Hackathon on DEV. I believe that with a number of my innovative ideas, millions of lives can be bettered. I am of the opinion that Deepgram can be embedded in applications such that it would ease people’s lives. I guess it is a great thing that the hackathon allows for users to make as many submissions as they would like. Although prior to the Deepgram x DEV Hackathon, I had not encountered Deepgram, given my interest in Artificial Intelligennce, I am not new to the concept of speech recognition technology.

I wrote on my first submission on how Deepgram can help make student’s lives much better. On this submission, I would be talking about how Deepgram’s API can be used to help developers. I mean, the first set of people that should benefit from a developer’s API should be other developers, right? Such selfish beings, developers.

My Deepgram Use-Case

My idea is pretty simple. A speech-to-text application that would help programmers and software developers who blog. Apart from earning $80k to $90k per annum, programmers are often encouraged to spend some of their time on blogging. The general consensus is that it will add extra benefits to one’s career and one can be a reason to inspire other fellow programmers or students. Although I do not earn $80k to $90k per annum, I constantly find myself blogging my software development journey. The benefits of blogging for programmers and developers cannot be over-emphasized. A programmer’s blog helps provide an ample opportunity to learn and polish their skills. A programmer’s blog can be a survival guide for beginner developers. A programmer’s blog will help build relations with new developers. A programmer’s blog also creates a timeline for their growth. However, after writing hundreds (try thousands?) of lines of code, writing that 500-word blog post explaining the process can seem like a tall order. I have experienced this first-hand and that was what inspired my submission to the Innovative Ideas category of the Deepgram Hackathon on Dev. I believe Deepgram could help with their speech-to-text technology by making sure all tired software developers have to do is speak. Without an iota of doubt, I believe I would rather talk about the process of using a Linear Regression algorithm than stare at my screen and write (after writing codes all day or all week long).

Dive into Details

This innovative idea will help such that blogging will become easier and less laborious for software developers. Using Deepgram's SDKs, which are supported for use with the Deepgram API, a pre-recorded audio file can be automatically transcribed. This will make sure the audio that the blogger (or software developer) had pre-recorded using a voice recorder can be converted from audio to text. As such, bloggers who are the major benefactor of this idea can easily pre-record their post. I took a look at Deepgram's documentation and realized that this is very possible. The most important Deepgram feature for this is the one that allows for the transcription of pre-recorded audios. To implement this, after creating a Deepgram account, I would need to generate a unique Deepgram API key. Since I am more accustomed to python, I would look to pip install the needed third-party module using the command pip install deepgram-sdk. In the terminal, I would create a new file in my project's location, and populate it with code as given in the documentation. I think it is worthy of note that Speech-to-Text technology improves endurance and reduce writing fatigue by eliminating the physical act of composing to paper and keyboard. This will in turn shift focus from the physical act of writing to that of expression and organization of thoughts and knowledge.

Conclusion

In conclusion, from participating in Deepgram Hackathon on DEV, I have gained a lot of insights as regards how speech-to-text technologies work and how it can help education as the key to development while it opens up a world of endless possibilities. Excited about my next innovative idea? Well, I am!