With 8 billion voice assistants in use globally by 2023, the future will be voice-first, but that future doesn’t include people with Down syndrome. Voice technology often doesn’t understand the community’s unique speech patterns, leaving them behind in the voice revolution. As a marginalized community, their needs were never considered.

The Canadian Down Syndrome Society (CDSS) had two problems to solve on a minuscule budget:

1- Make voice technology accessible to people with Down syndrome

2- Shift perceptions of a stigmatized community by showing how access to voice technology can lead to life-changing independence.

Young adults in the Down syndrome community are entirely capable of living independently. But to achieve self-sufficiency, they require more reminders, structure, and routine– unique needs they normally rely on caregivers for but could be answered by voice technology’s tools instead. This meant that access to voice assistants could offer life-changing independence for an entire community.

It’s a common, deep-seated misperception that people with Down syndrome are incapable of living independently. In this past, because of ignorance and stigma, adults were institutionalized and denied the right to lead independent, fulfilled lives.

As attitudes and understanding of Down syndrome have changed, adults began living with the support of their parents at home. However, today’s generation of young adults with Down syndrome are seeking even greater levels of autonomy, and want, just like everyone else their age, to lead fully independent, adult lives on their own.

With the right supports, people with Down syndrome are capable of living independently. Most rely on assisted housing, but the high cost of these supportive services means access is limited. However, an easy to use, low-cost technology like voice assistants could increase access to support for many, many more adults with Down syndrome and empower them achieve the independent living they deserve.

To increase access to Google’s voice technology, we turned the Down syndrome community into Google’s teachers. We worked with Google – a technology that usually teaches us – and empowered people with Down syndrome to become their teachers.

Introducing Project Understood, a campaign that turns people with Down syndrome into Google’s teachers, using their voices to train Google’s speech recognition model to understand them. Making voice technology more inclusive, by including people with Down syndrome in creating the solution.

In all its campaigns, the CDSS seeks to humanize people with Down syndrome; Project Understood continues with that approach by having members of the community advocate for improved voice technology. But this year’s campaign went a step further, by empowering the community to play an active role in improving their lives. Evolving from awareness and advocacy to giving people with Down syndrome agency, inclusion, and utility - all at once.

Voice technology requires millions of data points (human voices) to perform optimally. Unfortunately, for those with Down syndrome, the small size of their community means these AI systems lack the data they need to reliably understand them. So, our strategy was to fill this data gap by directly recruiting the niche Down syndrome community, to collect a large enough data sample that Google’s voice algorithm could start to recognize and learn the unique patterns in their speech.

Data collection was critical because it could unlock voice technology for people with Down syndrome – giving them access to lifechanging independence. Adults with Down syndrome are capable of living independently but require more structure and reminders to cook, clean, and manage everyday tasks. Voice assistants would be an invaluable tool by allowing them to set reminders, build to-do lists, and access support – all independently without relying on caregivers.

Phase 1: Recruiting the Community

The campaign launched during Canadian Down Syndrome Week, with social videos shedding light on the inaccessibility of voice technology and its potential impact. The videos were a recruitment tool, mobilizing the community to donate their voices to train Google and making them part of the solution. With only $1000 in media, we targeted this niche, tight knit Down syndrome community organically, knowing the more they engaged, the more we’d reach them. We also targeted Down syndrome groups across North America through email and organic social to collect data, who in turn engaged 735 international Down syndrome groups.

Phase 2: Changing Public Perception

Earned media and organic sharing further amplified our message, to change perceptions of people with Down syndrome by depicting the community in a new light - advocating for their right to live independently and empowered as the teachers of a world-leading technology corporation.

Project Understood achieved global reach. ROI is incalculable, but on a cost per impression basis, 775,000 impressions per $ spent isn’t bad. Other campaign results:

Recruiting the community:

-826,107 organic reach on Facebook (a 678% increase from the CDSS’s best performing campaign) and 82,995 engagements - with just $1,000 in media

-30+ countries and 735 Down syndrome organizations participated

-Over one million voices were donated to Google’s speech recognition database

Changing public perceptions:

-775 million earned media impressions globally.

Project Understood is making voice technology inclusive for the Down syndrome community. Google and CDSS presented their research at the UN on March 20th, 2020, calling on all technology companies to make voice technology accessible. In the Spring of 2021, Google launched a new beta voice assistant, based on the data we helped capture, showing Project Understood’s long-term impact on a vulnerable community.