Black woman-owned startup to be introduced at upcoming NNPA Conference
As the world navigates the ever-changing technological landscape, another potential game changer in the artificial intelligence industry has emerged.
ZingFrog.ai, the brainchild of Jayne Hopson and K.C. Hopson, is one of the latest text-to-speech developments designed to provide a more time-efficient alternative to consuming the news and other written material published online.
Through artificial intelligence capabilities, ZingFrog can convert a 750-word article to a one-minute read.
ZingFrog, in sum, is disruptive technology that offers newspaper publishers an out-of-box conversion of important, text-heavy articles to a concise, under-a-minute “Zings.” Essentially, the technology encapsulates a writer’s words and is presented in audio form that appeals directly to readers.
“Zings,” which is another term for condensed articles, have become prevalent among today’s readers, and is particularly useful for those who prefer succinct stories that can be read or listened to in a minute or less.
Jayne, a veteran health columnist for The Baltimore Times, is a member of the Association of Health Care Journalists.
As part of a 2023 Heritage Fund Fellowship, Jayne was tasked with identifying barriers to minority wellness, which also included researching and publishing weekly articles focused on health care disparities in poor and underserved Black communities.
Similar to Jayne’s first fellowship, her second Heritage Fund Fellowship was awarded to further investigate whether “Illiteracy is Black Public Health Enemy No. 1.”
After thorough consideration, she came to a striking realization: the troubling illiteracy rate among minority populations.
“Immediately, it became obvious to me that a lot of people cannot read in those [minority] populations. The illiteracy – in my opinion, in my observation – was public health enemy No. 1 for Black people,” Jayne Hopson stated.
If one cannot read or comprehend information properly, that person could never fully leverage the public health and wellness resources at his or her disposal, Jayne added.
“This presentation is a must for publishers seeking a cost-effective way to grow readership and deliver news to a wider audience with diverse needs, time and interest,” she also said.
K.C. is Jayne’s husband and the ZingFrog.ai’s chief technology officer. An accomplished technologist and entrepreneur, K.C. is Cadmium Software’s vice president of data security and compliance. He is also a Java programming expert and holds two software patents.
This new ZingFrog tool, according to Jayne and K.C., is a product of a sincere, urgent need to utilize AI text to speech technology “to deliver accurate print media messages to patients where the lack of medical illiteracy can be life threatening.”
In addition, ZingFrog is fashioned to provide quick access for literate individuals who are hesitant to read text-heavy content of importance, such as prescription medicine precautions, medical brochures and post outpatient surgery instructions.
The Baltimore Times is the first media outlet that is making use of the ZingFrog service, given Jayne’s connection to the publication. She said she’s known Baltimore Times publisher Joy Bramble for nearly 40 years.
“I’ve known Joy a really long time, and I thought The Baltimore Times would be a good platform for us to launch this project,” Jayne said.
According to K.C., every Baltimore Times article published over the last 90 days or so has been “Zinged,” meaning that those stories have condensed, text-to-speech versions. Visitors to the newspaper’s website can now view recently published content in full printed form or a condensed, summarized form.
Zinged articles appear at a sixth-grade reading level and have accompanying avatars that reflect the voice heard reading the stories, K.C. said, adding he and Jayne will soon solicit clients and potential customers – who will initially be Black publications – for the ZingFrog service.
“The analytics are showing that people are really interested in this,” he said.
The minority woman-owned company, officially named ZingFrog.ai LLC, is less than a year old. The technology will officially be rolled out at the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA) conference scheduled for June 19-22, 2024 at Baltimore’s Four Seasons Hotel.
Through observation and research, Jayne discovered something else concerning: the lack of cultural and ethnic diversity and representation in the artificial intelligence industry.
“AI is here to stay. What we quickly discovered was most AI is in white voices, and that’s a problem,” Jayne said.
Accordingly, K.C. pointed out that ZingFrog is “going to have minority representation because all the other [services] out there don’t. They have little or none. Even the so-called minority voices sound like white voices.”
