Intel ISEF 2010 People’s Choice Awards

What if a computer system could not only recognize the words someone said, but also the emotion tied to those words? This is the question Akash Krishnan and Matthew Fernandez of Oregon sought to answer when they developed a program that can classify emotions in speech with 77% accuracy. This innovative project, first presented at the Intel ISEF 2010 in San Jose, recently earned 60,000 votes and the first place spot in the Intel ISEF People’s Choice Awards.

While the judges decided the winners of the more than 1,600 Finalists who competed at the Intel ISEF, held in mid May, the public had a chance to weigh in on which Best-of-Category project they liked the most. More than 180,000 voters rose to that challenge and selected the 2010 People’s Choice Winners. The first ,second, and third place prized were a laptop, netbook, and I touch, respectively.

“It’s completely amazing how much support we received, and astonishing to see that many people saw our project to be a new and innovative idea that is both cool and inspiring,” Akash Krishnan told Intel recently. “I hope that the spread of the news for the People’s Choice Award has caught the eyes of many people out there in the world, ranging from middle schoolers to adults, and they have, hopefully, been inspired or intrigued by some of the new and innovative hot topics out there on the poll and in the world.”