Micah Fowler, left, and Cedric Yarbrough participate in the "Speechless" panel during the Disney/ABC Television Critics Association summer press tour in Beverly Hills, California, August 4, 2016.
Some phones and computers have digital voices. The same voices also can talk for people who have trouble speaking on their own. Some people cannot talk. Sometimes it is because of an illness. Sometimes they were born unable to speak. Now, they can use computers to talk.

Now scientists are making voices that sound more like the people who use them. They do not sound like computer voices.

People All Over The World Donate Their Voices

Scientists work with people who are sharing their voices to help others. Many people around the world are helping.

One is Priyanka Pandya from Columbia, Maryland. She is 16 years old. She plans to spend her vacation talking into her computer. She will save what she says on her computer. Then she will send it to a company that will use it to build a new voice.

Her voice could help one of many Americans who have trouble talking.

Pandya began recording her voice last summer, using headphones and speaking into her computer. Then she asked friends to do the same.

VocaliD Mixes Voices From Different People

Rupal Patel started VocaliD, the company that builds new voices. "Everyone has a voice," she said. Even people who cannot talk have sounds that are only theirs, she said.

Her company saves the sounds of the person who has trouble talking. Then those sounds are mixed with another voice. The voice is picked to match the sounds of the first person.

Scientists have been studying how to do this for years.

Tim Bunnell is one of the scientists who studied it. He has made voices for many people. Some were able to save their own voices when they could still talk.

Patel worked with Bunnell as a scientist. She made her own way of mixing voices. Then she asked people to use their computers to help. She wanted many different voices to sound like many different people.

People around the world have helped. Some are 6 years old and some are 91 years old.

Building New Voices Is Not Easy

Patel said she is working to make it easy to build voices. Right now, it costs too much for some people to get a new voice. People who share their voices have to talk a long time. Many of them do not finish.

John Gregoire was one of the first people to receive a new voice. He has been sick. He has not been able to talk for a long time.

Getting the voice was like getting back something that had been taken, Gregoire said.

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