In 2014, beloved actor and pop culture icon Val Kilmer lost his voice to an aggressive throat cancer treatment. But now, the Top Gun actor can speak again—even in his own voice, thanks to speech expert and Sonantic CEO Zeena Qureshi.
As CEO and Cofounder of Sonantic, Qureshi is the force behind realistic AI voices around the world, from video games and movies, to real-life applications. The Forbes 30-Under-30 lister founded the company just three years ago. Already, they have contracted with major gaming companies like Xbox, film studios, and other celebrities.
“We think of ourselves as the CGI of audio,” Qureshi told People Magazine. “We create the world’s most expressive and realistic artificial voices, and we do this for the entertainment industry.”
Zeena Qureshi launched herself to success at a young age
Despite her success as a tech entrepreneur, Qureshi actually began her career in a very different field. For nine years, she taught speech and language therapy to kids with Autism. During this time, she also juggled extra schooling and other start-ups.
In 2014, Qureshi developed a project at Stanford that went on to become BeSpeular, her first entrepreneurial endeavor. BeSpecular allows the visually impaired to snap a photo of something they need help with, and connect to someone in the world who can describe it, answer questions, and help them out.
Just a year later, Qureshi also founded and ran Ananas, an educational nonprofit that combats extremism. Using her strengths, Qureshi incorporated AI, data science, and blockchain into this program.
Zeena Qureshi draws inspiration from her mother
Qureshi now lives in London, but her parents immigrated from India. “I come from humble beginnings and am lucky to have a strong female role model in my mother,” she told Thrive Global.“Working hard was the norm in our household.”
She began her education in Art History, graduating from the University of London in 2013. She then attended Stanford University, where she developed her first company, BeSpecular. Throughout this time, Qureshi continued to work with Autistic children as a speech therapist.
Zeena Qureshi combines her strengths into Sonantic
Between her expertise in speech therapy and her successes as a socially-oriented tech entrepreneur, Qureshi’s next step was almost obvious. “Two and half years ago, I co-founded a company called Sonantic that teaches machines to speak the same way I taught children,” she explains.
Though only a few years old, Sonantic has already created quite a buzz. Most notably, Qureshi’s company recently worked with Val Kilmer, who had lost his voice to throat cancer. In order to do this, Sonantic used old footage of Kilmer’s acting career. They then developed an AI that could accurately re-create his voice, even down to emotion.
“The ability to communicate is the core of our existence and the effects from throat cancer have made it difficult for others to understand me,” Kilmer said. “The chance to tell my story, in a voice that feels authentic and familiar, is an incredibly special gift.”
See the result here:
