- 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. These components will be published with the open source and freeware licenses at the end of development.
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.
- Purpose of the Assignment
The MLSP (the Client) is seeking a local organization (the Consulting firm) to prepare the speech corpus for Mongolian TTS synthesizer development. The MLSP will select the qualified consultant following ADB’s Guidelines on the Use of Consultants.
- Consulting Firm’s Qualifications
The Consulting firm shall meet the following requirements:
- Experience in making speech corpus for TTS synthesis (Experiences in the Mongolian language will be an advantage)
- Must be fully capable to record voices in the professionally high standard studio equipped with sound-proof recording
- Experience in working with people with visual impairment and have a strong understanding in respect of needs, required assistive technologies, specially TTS
- Will have an advantage if has experience in leading and participating in international and local projects related to TTS, assistive technology development
- Speech corpus and text annotations are subject to the copyright under the Client. The consultant shall wholly transfer the Copyright of the speech corpus and text annotations.
- 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:
- Principal Investigator/ Team Leader
- Technician (2 persons)
- Voice Talent (3 women and 3 men)
- Corpus annotator (2 persons)
Please find the detailed Terms of Reference (TOR) for the consultancy service on ADB’s Consultant management system (CMS).
All interested firm should submit their Expression of Interest (EOI) via ADB’s Consultant Management Recruitment System before 13 June 2021. ADB’s CMS can be found at https://selfservice.adb.org/OA_HTML/adb/xxcrs/jsp/ADBCsrnFwd.jsp?sel=169579
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
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