A Tees Valley start-up which uses artificial intelligence software to recognise words and objects in digital content is helping researchers document an oral history of the the region’s steel industry.
Vlogbase was founded by Teesside University graduates Luke Stephenson and Andy Surtees and has developed online software to allow users to scan through video and audio content using search engine functionality.
The pair have worked with the Steel Stories project to digitise more than 35 hours of audio recordings of men and women connected with the former SSI plant at Redcar, talking about the significance of Teesside’s steel industry and its impact upon the world.
Steel Stories is a joint project carried out by researchers at Teesside University, together with the Kirkleatham Museum near Redcar, to record the lives of Teesside’s men and women of iron and steel.
The research team is led by Professor Natasha Vall, Associate Dean (Research and Innovation) in the School of Social Sciences, Humanities & Law, and Dr Joan Heggie, a Research Fellow and formerly the project manager of the British Steel Archive Project.
By using Vlogbase’s technology they were able to quickly access pertinent information in the recordings simply by typing the relevant term.
The software searches through the recordings and instantly highlights the point in the audio where that particular word is spoken, saving the research team hours of transcribing and searching through the material.