In case you missed it, Symbl.ai and Vonage sponsored a hackathon at VoiceSummit 2022 where attendees were challenged to create a project combining Vonage’s communications platforms with Symbl.ai’s unique capabilities to derive intelligence from conversation.
We announced the winner on the last day of the VOICE22 conference on Oct. 12, 2022, on the mainstage: S. Deepak Kumar won for his project LiveCaptioner.
A little about S. Deepak Kumar in his own words
“I’m a self-taught coder who loves to do web and app Development stuff. I’ve worked on and completed numerous client projects, including startups, schools/universities, and NGOs. I love to provide the simplest solution to any given problem.
I’m the winner of TCO21 Velo By Wix Hackathon, Common Ninja Virtual Hackathon, Context is Everything Hackathon by Vonage and Symbl.ai, Wix Skill Builder Challenge, and more. I was a Shining Star Member (February 2022 newsletter) of Topcoder.
Topcoder invited me as a special guest on the Topcoder Nation Show #12 (hosted by Luis Millan).
I also love exploring new places and immersing myself in other cultures.”
Deep dive: LiveCaptioner project
LiveCaptioner helps you get real-time captioning, complete transcription, topics, and questions asked during a one-to-one video call/meeting. It’s built using Symbl.ai’s Conversation Intelligence platform and Vonage’s Video APIs, and Kumar used HTML and JavaScript to build this project.
Features of the LiveCaptioner:
- Live captioning is enabled by default and provides a real-time transcription of your audio content during meetings.
- The app allows you to connect with your friends, family, or colleagues with real-time video and audio via the web browser.
- What you talked about during the meeting will all be stored in the chat section and can be exported.
- Topics and questions asked will be stored in a corresponding tab for access.
- After you connect to your device’s microphone, you can mute or unmute when you want.
LiveCaptioner Deep Dive
Kumar developed this app using HTML, CSS, JAVASCRIPT, Vonage Client Web SDK and Symbl.ai’s Web SDK.
To complete this project yourself, you will need to have the following:
- A Symbl.ai account: Sign up on the Symbl.ai Platform for free to gather your credentials (App ID and App Secret).
- A Vonage account: You will need to have a Vonage Video API account, which you can also create for free.
What was the inspiration To Build LiveCaptioner?
Because of trouble understanding accents, Kumar occasionally had difficulty understanding things during video meetings and recognized that many people must also be facing this problem. Sometimes meetings run long, and it can be challenging to follow what happened during the meeting, especially when one is hosting. Reviewing the video or asking others to repeat what has been said can slow down the meeting’s flow.
Kumar wished there was an app that could provide real-time captions while talking and export the whole conversation happening while the meeting takes place (with a timestamp) in the form of text. I came to know about this hackathon and worked on this idea. It was only possible with Vonage and Symbl.ai.
Challenges Kumar faced
Creating a project, deploying it, and adding functionality led Kumar to experience some hurdles. Kumar was aware of Symbl.ai but had never used its API, and he also had little prior knowledge of Vonage. So, Kumar faced several difficulties while building LiveCaptioner. Per Kumar, it was tough to complete the project in the last two days. However, he notes, Vonage and Symbl.ai API documentation is fantastic; it helped Kumar to understand their usage quickly.
Taking an application from an idea to a functioning thing is a multi-step process that Kumar knew nothing about before beginning his journey with this hackathon. In just a few short hours, he taught himself to use Symbl.ai’s Conversation Intelligence platform and Vonage’s Video APIs and used the two of them to build LiveCaptioner.
LiveCaptioner demo
You can find a demo of the LiveCaptioner below:
Congratulations!
Once again, a huge congratulations to S. Deepak Kumar for his winning project LiveCaptioner in the Context is Everything Hackathon by Vonage and Symbl.ai. We look forward to seeing more amazing projects from you in the future!
