| --- |
| title: Say It Back in Kalenjin |
| emoji: 🗣️ |
| colorFrom: yellow |
| colorTo: red |
| sdk: gradio |
| sdk_version: 5.49.1 |
| app_file: app.py |
| pinned: false |
| short_description: Say a word in English, hear it in Kalenjin |
| tags: |
| - build-small-hackathon |
| - backyard-ai |
| - off-brand |
| - tiny-titan |
| - best-demo |
| - bonus-quest-champion |
| - modal |
| - speech |
| - low-resource-languages |
| - kalenjin |
| - track:backyard |
| - sponsor:modal |
| - achievement:welltuned |
| - achievement:offbrand |
| --- |
| |
| # 🗣️ Say It Back in Kalenjin |
|
|
| Say a word in English. Hear it in Kalenjin, in a real Kalenjin voice. |
|
|
| Kalenjin is slipping away in my family. My wife thinks in English and wants to |
| learn it; this lets her say a word and hear how to say it back in Kalenjin. |
|
|
| ## How it works |
| Speak (or type) English → Whisper transcribes it → an English→Swahili→Kalenjin |
| cascade translates it → **Cheps** (a Kalenjin TTS I fine-tuned) speaks it. |
| Common phrases are pre-rendered so they play instantly. |
|
|
| ## Build Small (Hugging Face × Gradio) — what we're going for |
| - **Track:** 🏡 Backyard AI — built for a real person (my wife, learning Kalenjin). |
| - **💚 Modal — Best Use of Modal:** the translation cascade and the Cheps voice |
| both run on Modal at runtime; this Space orchestrates them. |
| - **🎨 Off Brand:** a fully custom UI (editorial serif, terracotta on off-white, |
| the Kalenjin word as the centerpiece) — well past the default Gradio look. |
| - **🐣 Tiny Titan:** every model is ≤4B — Whisper 74M (ASR), NLLB 600M ×2 in the |
| cascade (translation), Orpheus 3B + LoRA (the Cheps voice). Small weights, real |
| impact for a language with almost no tooling. |
| - **🏆 Best Demo:** app + demo video + social post. |
| - **👑 Bonus Quest Champion:** stacking the most bonus criteria above. |
| - **Demo video:** https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZn70fHyNa-/ |
| - **Social post:** https://www.instagram.com/reel/DZn70fHyNa-/ |
|
|
| Models run on Modal; this Gradio Space ties them together. |
|
|
