Anyone with a smartphone and virtual reality glasses can improve their ability to speak in public. The basis of this product is a technology developed by a team coordinated by Dr. Ana Mª Fernández Planas, from the Phonetics Laboratory of the UB, in collaboration with the company Madrid Team Training and under the guidance of Soraya del Portillo. Chiara allows its users to follow a practical course on oral expression techniques in a completely autonomous way and without the intervention of human teachers.

This application uses a 360-degree virtual reality environment, artificial intelligence technology, and a natural language analysis system to automatically evaluate student presentations. Chiara simulates up to 24 virtual scenarios, such as a press conference, a lecture in front of a large audience, and a meeting with clients. These exercises gradually increase the degree of difficulty with growing audiences or audiences that pose increasingly complicated and uncomfortable situations.

During virtual presentations, Chiara automatically analyses aspects such as intonation, speaking speed, pauses, and voice intensity thanks to research carried out at the UB’s Phonetics Laboratory, which is based on many years of basic research. In addition, it also incorporates the evaluation of other features that are essential for a good public presentation, such as positivity, clarity, and gaze control. To complete the training, the application provides the student with comments on the strengths and weaknesses of their presentation, as well as feedback to improve oral expression that is extracted from a database with over 200,000 combinations of different tips.

Chiara has already been successfully marketed on the Team Training platform, which specialises in offering training courses on speaking skills for professionals, and has been acquired by major companies from all over Spain.