Mongolian Text-to-Speech Synthesis Software (National Firm) -Reference No. C15
1.
Project
Background
The
Ministry of Labor and Social Protection (MLSP) of Mongolia aims to develop a
Mongolian Text-to-Speech (TTS) software system and deliver it to visually
impaired people who speak in Mongolian to improve an accessibility. The
Mongolian Text-to-Speech (TTS) software system comprises of the C15: Mongolian
speech-to-text synthesis software, C16: Mongolian Text-to-Speech Interfaces,
and C17: Mongolian Text-to-Speech Corpus.
The software system will run on the major operating systems like
Windows, Linux, Android, MacOS, and iOS, and consists of three main components:
a) a speech synthesizer that provides core functionalities to convert Mongolian
Cyrillic text to Khalkha dialects, b) screen reader interface programs that
separately run on such operating systems and c) high-quality speech corpora of
multiple speakers.
The MLSP (the Client) is
seeking a local organization (the Consultant) to develop the Mongolian
text-to-speech synthesis software, library files that run offline, have a
small footprint, and with the fast generation of
high-quality speech. The MLSP will select the qualified consultant following
ADB's Guidelines on the Use of Consultants.
2.
Purpose
of the Assignment
The MLSP (the Client) is
seeking a local organization (the Consulting firm) to develop the Mongolian
text-to-speech synthesis software, library files that run offline, have a
small footprint, and with the fast generation of
high-quality speech. The MLSP will select the qualified consultant following
ADB's Guidelines on the Use of Consultants.
3. Consulting Firm’s Qualifications
The Consulting firm shall meet the following requirements:
a. At
least 5 years of experience in Research and Development (R&D) in Natural
Language Processing (NLP)
b. Experience
in the development of TTS synthesizer and similar ones (Experiences in the
Mongolian language will be an advantage)
c. Experience
in building voice model in terms of R&D and interfacing a TTS synthesizer
to screen readers (Experiences in the Mongolian language will be an advantage)
d. Experience
in implementation of TTS for embedded devices (Experiences in the Mongolian
language will be an advantage)
e. Experience
in leading and participating in international and local projects related to
TTS, assistive technology development (Experiences in the Mongolian language
will be an advantage)
f. Experience
in working with people with visual impairment and have a strong understanding
in respect of needs, required assistive technologies, specially TTS
g. At
least 5 years of experience in R&D in assistive technology
h. Will
have an advantage if has experience in doing scientific research and
publications related to TTS and speech processing
i. Text-to-speech
synthesis software libraries, their source codes, voice models, technical
documents are subject to the copyright under the Client. The consultant shall
wholly transfer the Copyright of the software libraries, their source code,
voice models, technical documents.
j. In the
case of copyrighted software, the consultant should also transfer the copyright
and related technical documents without any pre-condition. If the software uses
third-party components, it should not have any copyright or license issues and
it should not charge any additional cost.
The company should have the below specialists as a minimum requirement for the entire assignment:
1.
Principal
Investigator/ Team Leader
2.
Natural
Language processing expert
3.
Linguist
4.
Developer
Please find the detailed
Terms of Reference (TOR) for the consultancy service on ADB’s Consultant
management system (CMS).
Only online submission of EOIs will be accepted. EOIs lacking required documents will be disqualified from evaluation. Only short-listed candidate will be contacted.
For more information on
the assignment and submission, please contact the Project Implementation Unit:
Loan 3605/
Grant 9191-MON: Ensuring Inclusiveness and Service Delivery for Persons with
Disabilities Project
Ulaanbaatar city, Chingeltei District, United Nations
Street -5,
Ministry of Labor and Social Protection, 1st
floor
+976-77335577