Giving the gift of your voice

I just came across this project this morning, via a friend who shared it on Facebook.
The Ted Talk below tells you everything you need to know, but in short, the organization is called VOCALiD and they are tackling a problem that, although it affects millions, I'd never really thought about before.

People who have lost the use of their voice for a myriad of reasons rely on synthetic voices to communicate. The selection of these are limited, so there are very few options in how you can express yourself.  As Ms Patel points out, an eight year old girl, and Stephen Hawking should not sound identical.  For a few hours (not all at once) in front of your computer or in your recording studio, you can help VOCALiD to map out unique voices for the tens of millions of people who need it.

My voice is something I took for granted for years, and it wasn't until I started putting time and money into developing it, and putting it to work for me that I realized its worth.  To be able to share that with someone who has lost their own voice, is a truly awesome opportunity.  I will be doing my best to circulate this amongst "the pros", but it's something that anyone can do, and it beats the heck out of writing a check and hoping the money is well spent.  

Best of luck to these folks on their endeavor.