For several years, a startup company Om3ga Solutions has been investing all its capabilities in developing a software that will provide unique voice recognition technology. Through prolonged work and dedication, Daktilograf, a platform that converts speech to text, enables the accurate transcription of Southern Slavic languages in real-time and has no limit on the number of words it recognizes. This unique technology helps many people, but over time, media, call centers, and larger IT Solutions companies have proven to be the most interested clients. Om3ga Solutions member, Snjezana Gomilanovic spoke about how Daktilograf came to be, how it works, and what its plans are.
“In early 2006, our CEO, with work experience at International Business Machines Corporation (IBM), began working on a speech-to-text algorithm and incorporated it into a social network for children with special needs as a voice chat. After many changes, this algorithm became an independent program for transcription of speech into text for Slovenian languages. Daktilograf offers fast and accurate transcription of an unlimited number of words via an online platform or mobile application, a cheaper solution on the market, easier to use because of the specific AI module that truly recognizes words, rather than being limited to a predefined word base like other solutions available for Slovenian languages “ explained Snjezana.
Their vision, as she said, has not changed and they continue to strive for the same things: “We have the same vision that we started with, which is constant improvement and development through gathering talents, creating sub-products and increasing technological readiness and the maturity of the countries of Southeast and Central Europe. ”
This type of platform can also be seen with global competitors such as Apple and Microsoft, but Daktilograf provides opportunities that large companies do not have for morphologically complex languages such as South Slavic.
“The big problem for the countries in Southeast and Central Europe is the lag in the digitalization process, as well as the lack of market solutions that automate business processes. Global companies are racing who will have a better speech to text solution on the market, however, all of these solutions are specialized in English and languages in the Germanic language family. The morphology and syntax of these languages are based on a much simpler system than in the Slovene language. Taking into account the complexity of the morphology of our languages, the appropriate speech to text solution must be made differently from the others – and this is precisely the situation with Daktilograf. Daktilograf is the only “smart” speech to text solution for Slovenian languages, which has no limit on the number of words he recognizes, “Snjezana said.
Om3ga is the first startup team from Montenegro that raised the capital of two of the most significant regional companies investing in tech startups – ICT Hub Ventures and South Central Ventures. These Venture capital (VC) companies from the region, as Snježana explained, have provided excellent mentoring and business consulting in various sectors, besides investments, all the time.
There is a large number of companies that benefit from implementing this idea, but there are some that are being posted because this platform has brought vibrancy to their daily business.
“Daktilograf is replacing the traditional typing process and introducing automated content creation for many industries. The use of Daktilograf cannot be strictly limited to a narrow niche, but we can say that the most interested clients so far have been the media, call centers, as well as larger IT Solutions companies ”said Snjezana.
With this platform, the workflow is accelerated and the physical work is transferred to the machine while employees can fully focus on the creative part of the job.
Besides Snjezana, who is the COO at Om3ga Solutions, the members of their team include Amil Cengic – the CEO and CTO of Om3ga Solutions, the co-author of the main code of Daktilograf and Miroljub Cirovic, who is the front end and cross-platform developer.
During the fourteen years, this company has had numerous extenuating and aggravating circumstances that have created from them what they represent today. “As a young company, we faced the challenges of establishing a company and products, finding the right market fit and revenue model, which entailed a fair number of hit-and-miss situations. As startups, we have learned a lot about the world of investment and business culture and through that “school” we have evolved into a stable company“, Snjezana explained.
To further improve and keep up to date with the regional and global innovations and developments, they have also become virtual tenants of IEC Tehnopolis. This collaboration has brought them numerous benefits that have helped them expand their partner network: “IEC Tehnopolis has enabled us to establish contacts with a wide network of people and businesses, as well as to establish lasting partnerships. Promotional and marketing assistance was not lacking and with IEC Tehnopolis we visited some of the most important conferences in the region, which helped us greatly expand our B2B network. “
Daktilograf 3.0 is currently in preparation and will be released in August 2020. This version is the top of their algorithm work and will give them access to more industries, as it is based on the most advanced artificial intelligence technology currently available. “In addition to the above, we will turn to expand to other markets outside the Balkans, which will be a challenging task, but we believe that through learning and growth we will be able to achieve this goal,” Snjezana concluded.
Web site: www.om3ga.org
