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A recording of your voice may seem innocuous , but it can actually disclose your identity , as well as extra data about you , such as how you are feeling . But it can also unveil disease from which you may suffer .
citizenry may not have grasped this yet , but party that process datum are increasingly cognizant that they need to deal spokesperson as personally identifiable data . This is specially on-key in Europe in the context of use of GDPR : While many company are hoping to build up AI on top of voice data , in many suit , this requires take away biometric entropy first .
This is where Nijta hopes to aid : by leave AI - powered lecture anonymization technology to clients that need to abide by with privacy necessity . While its name is a Hindi countersign for seclusion , it is establish in Lille , France , where its Indian CEO , Brij Srivastava , moved for his PhD atInria , the French Institute for Research in Computer Science and Automation .
Nijtawas born fromInria Startup Studio , a program direct at supporting Ph.D. entrepreneurs who desire to pop out a business . It work : Nijta is now an honour - winning young B2B caller with € 2 million in financial backing from various informant , including French cryptical tech VC fundElaiaand Lille - establish investment funds firm Finovam Gestion .
“ Europe is our chief market , ” Srivastava told TechCrunch . The main reason is simple : “ GDPR is a very strong information privacy law . ” While voice anonymization can be relevant to several sectors , Nijta ’s cushy berth is a mix of compliance and business chance .
“ Nijta ’s AI - power voice anonymization technology offers a result for many enterprises who are increasingly concerned about information concealment and commove about generative AI , ” Elaia investment director Céline Passedouet say in a statement .
Growing use cases
Call centers in worldwide are potential customers of Nijta , but even more so when they look at with wellness information .
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One of its early collaborations was aroundOkyDoky , a task direct at good handling medical emergency Call . While it is gentle to see how AI can help , it is obvious that voices had to be anonymized to both polish off speaker unit identity and personally identifiable selective information from the training datum .
Other use cases include defense scenarios , which Srivastava did n’t expand on for obvious intellect , but also edtech , where children ’s voices want to be anonymized before leveraging AI to give them pronunciation feedback , for instance .
capacity generated by Nijta is watermarked , which is becoming thestandard if not the rulefor all things procreative AI . The inauguration also state that Nijta Voice Harbor ’s protection is irreversible , unlike some of the interpreter modification foolishly used by media outlets hoping to protect victims they interview .
A lack of awareness of privacy issues around phonation is one of the challenges Nijta will have to face . This is also why get down with B2B and Europe seems to make sense : Even if customer are n’t press for part privacy , hazard a hefty fine is sprain companies into early adopters .
Eventually , though , Nijta is hop to elaborate into B2C , with an middle on secure recorded messages , for instance . “ Real - time anonymization for safe communicating is also something that we are very actively explore , ” Srivastava said . But B2C is a few long time down the melodic phrase ; Nijta ’s small squad ca n’t spread itself too lean .
Northern tailwinds
Nijta has seven team member , include Srivastava ; his two full - time co - founding father , Seyed Ahmad Hosseini and Nathalie Vauquier ; and his former professor , senior research scientist and part - time atomic number 27 - beginner Emmanuel Vincent . Srivastava hopes that the squad will grow to 10 citizenry by June , but it is also receive international help for try the startup would n’t go after on its own .
Business France , in particular , avail Nijta reduce internationalization costs , Srivastava said . “ Because we are small , we can not hire many salespeople in different countries . ” rather , it can rely on prospection from a Business France representative in a particular country , “ and the cost is mostly subsidize by [ Lille ’s ] Hauts - de - France region . ” In increase , it opened door for the startup in itssister state of Maryland .
There ’s something going on with AI startups in France
This is one of the reasons why Srivastava has no trouble answering when he ( often ) gets asked why Nijta is based in Lille , not Paris . While some of the tailwind it bask are more broadly linked to France , it determine the country ’s northernmost area to be handily place within penny-pinching reach of Paris , as well as Brussels , Amsterdam and London .
To go international , however , Nijta will have to go multilingual . That ’s a big R&D challenge , but one the startup is working on , with its hatful on Europe and Asia . It should also aid that the startup is set to get another € 1 million fromBpifrance‘sdeep technical school development aid , a combined Hiram Ulysses Grant and repayable progress to finance R&D expenditure ; this will also make the interrogative sentence of why Srivastava pick out Lille and France even easy to respond .
