| Our History |
Fluential's CEO, Farzad Ehsani, first began working with cutting edge speech translation technology in the mid-1990s when he was manager of the Applications Group at Entropic (now owned by Microsoft). Farzad was the Principal Investigator on a government-sponsored project for developing speech translation systems. Here is where he learned first-hand about the need for speech translation and the lack of functional technology.
In 1998, equipped with this experience and valuable insight, Farzad, along with two other professionals, founded Fluential. Their main goal was to apply advances in speech recognition and other technologies to create practical and highly accurate speech-to-speech translation applications that could be used to eliminate critical language barriers in the real world, not just in the research lab.
Fluential was able to start its technological development with funding from the Advanced Technology Program of National Institute of Standards and Technology, which awards up to $2M for high-risk, high-reward technologies to top innovators in the country. After the successful completion of this project, Fluential continued to improve its technology with funding from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, Office of the Secretary of Defense, U.S. Army's Intelligence and Security Command, Department of Defense's Special Operations Command, Army Research Lab, and DARPA.
Fluential's unique and innovative approach to solving the problems of language barriers formed the basis for the first interactive speech translation system ever used in a U.S hospital. This system – which enabled radiology technologists to communicate with their Spanish-speaking patients – was a successful adaptation of more than twenty highly accurate and practical interactive speech translation applications that had been developed for the U.S. military.
Currently, Fluential continues to expand the scope of its applications, providing innovative solutions and cutting-edge technology primarily to the military and healthcare professionals. We are currently optimizing systems to enable U.S. service members to train Iraqi soldiers and policemen, nurses to improve safety and the quality of care for their non-English speaking patients, and physical therapists to speed up the recovery of their limited English-proficient patients. |
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