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FUTA Don Wins Nigerian Communication Commission’s Research Grant


FUTA Don Wins Nigerian Communication Commission’s Research Grant

 Adebayo Adetunmbi, a Professor of Data Science and Computational Linguistics at the Federal University of Technology Akure, FUTA School of Computing, has won a major grant from the Nigerian Communication, NCC for the development of Bi-Directional, Multilingual Speech to Speech Translation for Mobile Communication. The major deliverable of the research project to be fully funded by the NCC is the development of a language translation system in phone communication process for the country. A gadget which automatically translates languages will be produced by the team led by Adetunmbi and its main feature is a mechanism that automatically translates languages to the one understood and intelligible to the receiver.  Other deliverables expected by the NCC from the Adetunmbi team  at the end of the two year research initiative include a continuous speech recognition subsystem for English ,Hausa ,Igbo and Yoruba languages , a bi-directional  multi engine text to text machine translation system , spontaneous  speech synthesis system , and multi lingual speech translation system . The proposal also includes the design and modelling, implementation, evaluation and refinement of continuous speech recognition subsystem, text to text machine translation subsystems and automatic speech synthesis sub systems .The letter of award was personally signed and presented on behalf of NCC by its Executive Vice Chairman and Chief Executive Professor Umar   Danbatta, at its Corporate Headquarters in Abuja on Tuesday June 11, 2019. Danbatta enjoined Adetunmbi and his team to render the services “in line with professional and academic standards and international best practices “ 

An elated Professor Adetunmbi says of the projects, “It will impact positively on the social, economic and technological status of Nigeria. It will build up an avenue for job creation leading to an improved wellbeing of the citizenry. The project will also boost Nigeria’s image among technologically advanced nations if her citizens would use mobile devices that enable them communicate with Nigerians of different tongue. Also it will enhance capacity building for Masters and Ph.D. students.” Adetunmbi said he would work with language specialists from the Adeyemi College of education, Ondo and the General Studies Unit of Federal University of Technology Akure to ensure the realization of the objectives of the project and the NCC.

Reacting to the development, the Vice Chancellor, Professor Joseph Fuwape, congratulated Professor Adetunmbi on the grant saying the award has once again shown the prowess of FUTA as a leading citadel of academic and technological excellence. 68 applications were received by the NCC from universities across the country and FUTA’s Professor Adetunmbi‘s proposal and 10 others were found worthy by NCC assessors to deliver the objective of the Commission and given the grant by the NCC.