PRESERVING CULTURAL STORIES & WISDOM OF THE ELDERS
All that our ancestors learned during their lives – their inventions, discoveries, and experiences – are the foundation of who we are now, and, in turn, what is passed down to future generations. They experienced wars, and peace, and were devastated by broken treaties and residential schools that robbed them of their language and taught them to reject their heritage.
When an Elder of your community passes on, all their valuable history and knowledge ultimately passes with them. There is a need to preserve their wisdom, history, and narratives so that future generations will learn and benefit from their experiences.
Elder Voices is a project by Language Preservation Technologies designed to record the voice and experiences from indigenous communities and then to preserve their spoken word and stories for future generations.
Elder Voices is an interactive technology that will allow children and participants to “ask” questions of an Elder. The responses of the Elders will be available on a platform designed for this purpose. Answers will be spoken by the Elder in their native tongue with subtitles for full accessibility to all. Further enhancements can include 3D and holographic technologies to allow the Elder to appear even more present with the audience.
Elder Voices is a new program designed to help preserve and share priceless experiences before the elders are lost forever. Elder Voices is based upon the brainchild of Steven Spielberg and the Shoah Foundation who are preserving the experiences of witnesses to the Holocaust by sharing their testimonials through artificial intelligence and speech technology.