A young mind defies the conventional race for rankings and entrance exams, choosing a path less traveled. Meet Pranet Khetan, a 16-year-old from Shiv Nadar School, Gurugram, who has developed an incredible AI-powered solution for those facing speech and voice challenges. In a country where academic achievements often take center stage, Pranet's story is a breath of fresh air, showcasing the power of innovation and empathy.
Samsung Solve for Tomorrow 2025, a prestigious education program, challenged young minds to tackle real-world issues with technology. Among the four winners, Pranet stood out with his creation, Paraspeak. This simple yet revolutionary device records a user's voice, sends it to a cloud-based AI model, and then plays back a clear, fluent Hindi translation.
The program's themes included AI for an inclusive Bharat, future health and well-being, environmental sustainability, and social change through sports and tech. The winning teams, including Pranet, received a grant of ₹1 crore for incubation support at IIT Delhi, a significant boost for their innovative ideas.
Pranet's journey began with a simple yet profound question: "Why can't we have a device that understands Hindi speech, especially when someone is struggling to speak?" This question, asked in the quiet IT lab of his school, led to an invention that changed lives.
In May 2024, a visit to a paralysis care center near New Delhi inspired Pranet. He witnessed patients' struggles to communicate, survivors of strokes, individuals with cerebral palsy, and those living with Parkinson's disease. Over the next year, he delved into the world of automatic speech recognition (ASR) systems, only to discover a glaring gap - no major database existed for dysarthric Hindi speech. Undeterred, he took matters into his own hands and created a custom dataset.
"I trained the AI model to interpret slurred Hindi speech in real-time and reconstruct it into clear words," Pranet explains. "Hearing it work for the first time was like giving a voice back to someone who had lost it."
At a time when most teenagers are focused on exams, Pranet is creating literal pathways of sound, connecting those who are silenced with the world. Paraspeak, a matchbox-sized device powered by AI and machine learning, is a game-changer for stroke and Parkinson's patients, helping them speak clearly despite their voice challenges. What sets Paraspeak apart is its focus on Hindi, making it a unique and powerful tool in a world dominated by English-centric speech recognition systems.
Pranet's dedication is evident as he visited hospitals and rehabilitation centers, collecting over thirty voice samples, each recording a lesson in data and dignity.
But here's where it gets even more inspiring... Pranet's immediate goal is to scale Paraspeak, refine its accuracy, and collaborate with assistive-tech firms to make it accessible across India. He also aims to expand its linguistic reach, developing databases for other Indian languages that are often overlooked by global AI systems.
And this is the part most people miss... Pranet's innovation is not just about technology; it's about humanity. It's about giving a voice to those who struggle to be heard, about breaking barriers, and about the power of a single idea to change lives.
So, what do you think? Is Paraspeak a game-changer for speech and voice difficulties? Do you see the potential for similar innovations in other languages and regions? We'd love to hear your thoughts in the comments below!
