accent-training
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Vu Van
Vu Van is the Vietnamese-born co-founder and CEO of ELSA (English Language Speech Assistant), an AI-powered app that gives non-native speakers instant feedback on English pronunciation, fluency and intonation. She built the idea out of her own struggle to be understood as a Stanford graduate student, teamed up with speech-recognition scientist Xavier Anguera, and has grown ELSA into one of the world's largest AI language platforms, with tens of millions of users across roughly 190 countries. She is a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer and Endeavor entrepreneur.
ELSA, Corp
ELSA (English Language Speech Assistant) is an AI-powered English pronunciation and speaking coach built on proprietary speech-recognition technology trained on non-native accents. Founded in 2015 by Vu Van and speech scientist Xavier Anguera, the app gives learners real-time, phoneme-level feedback on how they actually sound - not just what they type. It has grown to tens of millions of users across 100+ countries and expanded from a consumer app into ELSA Business, ELSA Schools, an API, and a generative-AI conversation tool called ELSA AI Tutor.
BoldVoice
BoldVoice is a New York-based AI speech and accent coaching app that helps non-native English speakers communicate more clearly and confidently. It pairs proprietary speech AI that gives instant, phoneme-level pronunciation feedback with video lessons taught by Hollywood dialect coaches. Founded in 2021 by Anada Lakra and Ilya Usorov, the app has passed five million downloads across 150+ countries and crossed $10M in annual recurring revenue with a small team.