The Secret Behind Stephen Hawking`s `Voice` |
Though many stories have come out in the days and weeks since the passing of legendary physicist Stephen Hawking, and a lot written about his contribution to society, and how he managed to survive decades while dealing with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, more commonly known as ALS, but a secret is yet to be revealed. One individual who played a pivotal part in Hawking`s life has long been overlooked. He is none other than Indian American Hari Vyas, the man behind the program that allowed Hawking to speak to others using his voice synthesizer board. This is to recall that Vyas was the architect who designed the hardware for the board, along with a team of developers that included Jim Caldwell, who worked on the development of the firmware; and Keith Williams, who developed the software; as well as scientists Dr. Gabe Groner, Dr. Jared Bernstein and Dr. Bathshebam; and linguists Susan Barber and Eric Dorsey, among others. The 73-year-old Vyas, a native of Kanjari, Gujarat, India, has lived in San Jose, Calif., since 1978. He told India-West that for his entire life, he has had a passion for engineering. As a student, he joined Birla Vishwakarma Mahavidyalay engineering at Sardar Patel University where he went on to earn his undergraduate degree.
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