Speech is Golden: On Speech Recognition at the Service of the Danish Public Sector

Most of the Danish municipalities are ready to begin to adopt automatic speech recognition, but at the same time remain nervous following a long series of bad business cases in the recent past. Complaints are voiced over costly licences and low service levels, typical effects of a de facto monopoly on the supply side. The present article reports on a new public action strategy which has taken shape in the course of 2013-14. While Denmark is a small language area, our public sector is well organised and has considerable purchasing power. Across this past year, Danish local authorities have organised around the speech technology challenge, they have formulated a number of joint questions and new requirements to be met by suppliers and have deliberately worked towards formulating tendering material which will allow fair competition. Public researchers have contributed to this work, including the author of the present article, in the role of economically neutral advisers. The aim of the initiative is to pave the way for the first profitable contract in the field - which we hope to see in 2014 - an event which would precisely break the present deadlock and open up a billion EUR market for speech technology at the service of the public sector.