Press Release

TuVox Appoints Silke Witt-Ehsani, PhD, To Key Leadership Role

Renowned Linguist to Lead Innovative TuVox Design Center

CUPERTINO, Calif. – July 9, 2007 – TuVox, a leading provider of on demand speech applications, today announced that it has named Silke Witt-Ehsani, PhD, to the position of Vice President, TuVox Design Center.  The TuVox Design Center for VUI Design and Speech Science is a first-of-its-kind cross-functional design team, fusing best practices across multiple disciplines to combine innovative, brand-enhancing voice application design with strong business results.  Dr. Witt-Ehsani’s professional expertise includes extensive experience in natural language techniques, and Silke has contributed significantly to the development and success of the TuVox Perfect Router speech application.

Dr. Witt-Ehsani has been a longtime member of the TuVox team and most recently served as Director, VUI Design and Speech Science Practice.  In this role, she played an instrumental part in the creation of the TuVox Design Center, an inter-disciplinary team with skills as diverse as Communication Psychology, Cognitive Science, Audio Engineering, Speech Science, Human Factor Engineering, Linguistics, Solution Consulting and Branding.  A number of the members of this team hold PhD’s in various fields, with numerous patents and industry publications among them. 

“As a speech-industry veteran, Silke has been a pioneer in the development of ground-breaking and innovative voice applications that millions of callers have used, “said Larry Miller, President and CEO, TuVox. “The TuVox Center was formed to ensure that each TuVox speech application offers an optimal user experience.  Such user experience design is a cornerstone of any successful speech deployment, as user-friendly interfaces determine whether or not users will find the application to be useful, efficient, and pleasant.  We are extremely pleased to have Silke leading the TuVox Design Center team that will continue to be instrumental in designing and delivering world class voice applications for TuVox customers.” 

Dr. Witt-Ehsani has over 13 years of research and industrial experience in the creation and application of speech and natural language technology in call center environments, ranging from speech recognition algorithm development to the design of numerous leading-edge speech dialog systems. Prior to TuVox, Dr. Witt-Ehsani was responsible for VUI design, grammar development, speech application tuning at Edify Corporation, now part of Intervoice (NASDAQ: INTV).   Dr. Witt-Ehsani holds a PhD in speech recognition from Cambridge University.

About TuVox
TuVox is a leading provider of On Demand speech applications, empowering companies to deliver superior caller experience through the voice channel. Available as a hosted or on-premise solution, TuVox’s award winning applications are easily customized to your business and can quickly be updated in response to business changes.

TuVox speech applications automate virtually any type of call, including natural language call-routing, self-service transactions and interactive customer support. By delivering a superior caller experience, TuVox speech applications increase customer satisfaction and improve the adoption of voice self-service.

TuVox has provided solutions to over 60 companies, including 1-800-Flowers.com, ABN-AMRO, American Airlines Credit Union, British Airways, Canon, Charter Communications, Gateway, Office Depot, Telecom New Zealand, and Time Customer Service.