MARS Project wins Tech4Good Judges' Award for AI for Good

The MARS (Machine Analysis and Reporting of Spoken personal stories with aphasia) Project, which is tackling a hidden gap in stroke rehabilitation, has won a Tech4Good Judges' Award for AI for Good.

Since 2011, the Tech4Good Awards have aimed to spotlight the innovators creating positive impact and support them with recognition, networking and pathways to growth.

In particular, the Tech4Good Judges’ Award is given by the judges to an inspiring individual or organisation using technology to make the world a better place. Past winners have included Stephen Hawking, Dame Stephanie Shirley, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, and the Raspberry Pi Foundation.

Aphasia is a complex language disorder caused by brain injury, such as stroke or head trauma. Around 350,000 people in the UK live with aphasia, yet most NHS speech and language therapists do not have the time or tools to analyse narrative stories, focusing instead on word and sentence-level language with their clients.

To solve this issue, MARS uses programming and AI in combination to record, transcribe and analyse speech from people with aphasia, making this work practical in real clinical settings.

The results are striking, and the app can complete analysis in around 6 minutes compared with 8 hours 44 minutes for a trained human, a 99% time saving. Accuracy is best achieved when a therapist checks and adjusts the machine analysis at each stage, completing the analysis in 1 hour 20 minutes, an 84% time saving.

The members of the MARS team at City St George’s are Professor Lucy Dipper, Professor Madeline Cruice, Dr Becky Moss, Dr Niamh Devane, Ruth O’Hagan, Jean Rutter, Sarah Johnston and Clare Rossiter.

Speaking about winning the Judges' Award, Professor Dipper said:

“We are delighted to have won this award, in a category with some impressive contenders. We would like to thank the judges for recognising the importance of this tool designed to respond to the priorities of speech and language therapists and the people with aphasia that they support.

“The MARS team, and our collaborators at Briolexica and Barts Health, feel hugely honoured by this award.  We were particularly pleased to have one of our PPIE advisors, Jan, at the event to accept the award on our behalf.”

Speaking about the project, the Tech4Good website said: “The MARS Project is a winner because it turns a task that can take hours into something faster, clearer and more useful in everyday care.”

The MARS Project is being carried out in collaboration with Briolexica (formerly Therapy Box), and it is funded by Barts Charity.