ROKTalk to be given to 5,000 schools across the UK Free of Charge
Leading text-to-speech service for websites to be given free of charge to
5,000 schools across the country in a £600,000 website accessibility and
usability initiative.
Apply Now!
ROKTalk, the text-to-speech service for websites designed to
‘make websites talk’ through converting written text on websites into
real-time, real voice, audible speech, has today announced it is to gift the
service to up to 5,000 primary and secondary schools across the UK this year
through it’s not-for-profit organization, The ROK Foundation.
There are approximately 30,000 primary, secondary, special needs and
independent schools in the UK. Under the terms of the plan, the first 5,000
schools to apply for the free service before 31st July will have it installed
and operational on their websites in time for the next school year in
September.
Schools may apply for the free
ROKTalk service to be added to their websites by completing the online
application form www.roktalk.com/school-signup.html
Website accessibility is an increasingly important obligation with legislation
such as The Disability Discrimination Act paving the way for The Equality Act,
set to be ratified into law in the UK later this year, obliging website owners
‘to ensure that it is not unreasonably difficult’ for disabled
people to use their websites.
Approximately 10 million people, or 15% of the population, in the UK suffer
from some form of disability which presents them with a challenge, to a greater
or lesser extent, to internet access – resulting in a barrier to the
socio-economic benefits of being ‘web-enabled’. These disabilities
include dyslexia and cognitive and learning difficulties through to visual
impairments, including blindness.
“Many people would assume the internet to be out of reach of the
disabled.” Said Jonathan Kendrick, Chairman and CEO of ROK. “In
fact, with the aid of assistive technologies, the World Wide Web has given many
disabled people greater autonomy than ever before – providing the
websites they visit are as fully accessible as technology allows.”
ROKTalk has been specifically developed to take website accessibility and
usability to the next level through providing website owners with usability
functions to include cap-height adjustment and colour-contrast changers, in
addition to text-to-speech, as well as enabling website visitors to
download text as audible MP3 files.
“The enormous development in website accessibility and usability that
ROKTalk delivers is obvious, particularly for those with a learning disability
such as dyslexia and those who are visually impaired, but so is the fact that
most schools are hard-pressed financially with little or no budget to license
new technologies.” Said Kendrick. “This is why we have taken the
decision to give ROKTalk free of charge to as many schools across the country
as we can.”
ROKTalk is usually priced at between £120 and £2,500 per year depending on the
nature of the customer (whether they be Commercial, Governmental or
Charitable), the services they license and the number of visitors to their
websites.
“We will aim to offset our costs from providing ROKTalk free of charge to
5,000 schools through the placement of relevant and appropriate sponsorship
within the service and we will also offer ROKTalk to those schools who miss the
cut at a heavily discounted rate, to include our
text-to-speech language translation service, in due course.”
The full ROKTalk service, currently being licensed to website owners worldwide,
includes a multi-language text-to-speech translation service.
Bruce Renny
Marketing Director
: bruce.renny@rokent.com
: +44 (0) 1902 374896 (T)
: +44 (0) 7774 005005 (M)
: +44 (0) 1902 374603 (Fx)
Rok Talk Limited, Rok House, Kingswood Business Park, Holyhead Road, Albrighton, Wolverhampton, WV7 3AU
|