The National wins Stevie Award for text-to-speech feature

English and Arabic feature is the first of its kind for publishers in the region

The National's Xavier Kashelle accepts the accolade at the 2023 Stevie Awards in Ras Al Khaimah. Photo: The Stevie Awards

The National has won a Middle East and North Africa Stevie Award for a feature on its website that allows visitors to listen to stories in English and Arabic.

The text-to-speech feature, developed with support from the Google News Initiative Innovation Challenges programme, involved extensive training of the translation engine to accurately translate expressions, idioms and colloquialisms, which are challenging in both the English and Arabic languages.

It was the first such feature for publishers in the region and continues to be popular with a growing audience.

"Our goal was to introduce a new way for users to consume news — particularly for commuters and those who are visually impaired," said Xavier Kashelle, digital product manager of The National.

“Google’s voice and translation capabilities have now reached a level of sophistication that is very appealing to users. With the rise in popularity of voice platforms, it was an important move for us to demonstrate how we can leverage technology to raise our level of inclusivity.

"We’ve seen a very encouraging uptake of the feature and hope to continue working in this space as demand increases.”

The National received the bronze Stevie Award in the Innovation in Media, Visual Communications & Entertainment category at the Mena ceremony held on Saturday at the Waldorf Astoria in Ras Al Khaimah.

Stevie Awards aim to recognise innovation in the workplace among government and private-sector entities.

This year's Mena event received more than 800 nominations from organisations across 18 countries.