The Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) has selected Kynamics to develop a portable language translation system with funds worth $192.5K.
The California-based awardee will deliver this tool under the Silicon Valley Innovation Program to help the U.S. Coast Guard communicate with non-English speakers when required by missions, DHS said Thursday. S&T issued the award through the Language Translator solicitation.
Coast Guard members may need to communicate with non-English speaking vessel passengers during rescue missions. The Kynamics team plans to further develop its TalkBox multilingual translator designed for high-battery efficiency and offline-able use.
The Coast Guard seeks a tool that can automatically identify spoken languages even without internet connection. When linked to the web, the tool would automatically perform fixes and generate feedback.
“We’re excited to see how the Kynamics project unfolds as we move through this first proof-of-concept phase with USCG,” said Melissa Oh, SVIP managing director.
Parties interested in the Language Translator solicitation may still submit applications through Oct. 20, 2020 for the program's upcoming round, and through Feb. 20, 2021 for the next.
