Special episode of Goddess Festival | exclusive interview with Chinese AI goddess Zhang Qingqing's transformation from a female learning tyrant to a female entrepreneur

Another year “ Goddess Festival ”, Nowadays, women make great contributions to society and family , Created a lot of social public value , For this reason “ Goddess power ” The word" , Express a unique power of women .

On special days , The editor interviewed the founder of AI Shu intelligence and CEO Zhang Qingqing , Let's enjoy how a female Xueba transforms into a successful female entrepreneur step by step .

To study ： The indissoluble bond between female Xueba and pronunciation

Zhang Qingqing is a voice data scientist , I didn't see her for the first time “ Data scientist ” That seriousness , Instead, it gives people a capable and sunny style .

Because of a course , She is very interested in pronunciation ; Because of interest , She has been working in the field of voice ; Also because of my experience in the French National Laboratory , Let her realize the standard of good data and maintain a scientific and rigorous attitude in research .

The following is an exclusive interview with Zhang Qingqing ：

Speaking of voice data scientists , It seems that women are rarely seen in this field .

Zhang Qingqing ： Yes , Others say I'm a voice data scientist , But I prefer to call myself a programmer , Because at the beginning of my work, I came into contact with writing programs , One difference is that I write AI programs . I don't think there should be gender differences in any industry , Because our ideals are gender neutral .

What was the reason why you first came into contact with voice technology as a research direction ？

Zhang Qingqing ： I study communication engineering myself , The first time I came into contact with pronunciation was in my junior year , At that time, I took a course called “ Speech signal digital processing ”. At that time, there were not many speech recognition experts , This course was given to us by the teacher of Datang Telecom who mainly studies communication .

Since then, I have been very interested in voice , I have no idea how people pass through their vocal cords , Then the mouth makes a sound , And I can receive sound through my ears and have a lot of interest , I hope I can do some further research in this direction . So at that time, during the doctor's escort , I chose the Institute of acoustics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences , Since then , I have been moving forward in the direction of speech recognition .

After completing the Ph.D. degree in speech signal digital processing in the Institute of acoustics, Chinese Academy of Sciences , I went to France again , Continue to engage in corresponding research work in the French National Laboratory , I finished my post doctoral study there . My research topic at that time was acoustic modeling of large vocabulary continuous speech recognition . When I was in France, I also participated in some EU voice projects , It involves many multilingual acoustic construction technologies in the European Union .

Experience in French National Laboratory , What impact does it have on your professional research in speech ？

Zhang Qingqing ： At that time, I participated in an international evaluation competition in France , This is a global evaluation competition , The data used by contestants must be completely consistent . If any contestants use their own special data , Will be taken out for all contestants to share , The main thing is to ensure that all contestants evaluate their system indicators on the same level of data .

This incident illustrates one thing from the side , That is, the amount of data has a great impact on the performance of our model . Our country now also carries out some evaluation and evaluation in many industries , I also hope that these evaluations in our country can refer to overseas practices , We should evaluate it on the same scale , Make sure everyone uses the same data , Only in the end can we reflect the performance differences of each company . This can reflect our scientific and rigorous attitude , Such a rigorous attitude , It also has a great impact on my future professional research .

chart ： Zhang Qingqing

Start a business ： Establish AI Shu wisdom and become a female entrepreneur

With the in-depth understanding of voice technology and industry , Zhang Qingqing wants to do more and more , Finally in the 2016 In, he founded the data service company love digital intelligence . As a woman , She admitted that entrepreneurship is difficult , I also admit that I was very confident , Because AI Shu intelligence is solving the pain points of some industries .

thus , Zhang Qingqing changed from a female student bully to a successful female entrepreneur .

After returning home , What did you want to do most at that time ？

Zhang Qingqing ： After returning home, I did research work in the Institute of acoustics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences , What I wanted to do most at that time was to apply my research experience of speech recognition accumulated in the past ten years to actual production and life , Contact includes Huawei 、 tencent 、 Ali 、360、UCweb Other enterprise projects , Help build the basic system of speech recognition .

In the process of doing this, I found that the whole industry lacks awareness of data , What kind of data can solve our model , Let our AI have better effect . This is lack of industry standards , So from then on , Begin to have a strong interest in data , Slowly come up with an idea , Maybe one day I will be a data company .

At that time, whether there was confidence in the establishment of the company ？

Zhang Qingqing ： Of course , From the first day of entrepreneurship, we have confidence , And confidence is more and more sufficient . Probably 2015~2016 It was around the year that AI and big data surged , Many companies are developing corresponding AI software and hardware products , In the process, we found , Who uses more data 、 Better quality , The performance improvement of the product is more intuitive .

I have accumulated knowledge about how to clean in the field of artificial intelligence for many years 、 structured 、 Methods of filtering and processing data , And form a complete system , This system just solves the difficulties of artificial intelligence data processing , This point has created a blue ocean in the field of artificial intelligence .MagicData, Love number wisdom is conceived based on this point . In these five years , With the development of AI, AI is getting bigger and bigger , Recognized by more and more industry customers , Our confidence is more and more sufficient .

Especially for women , Entrepreneurship is not an easy thing .

Zhang Qingqing ： First , Entrepreneurship is not an easy thing . Someone once said , Entrepreneurship is anti human , In the five years since I started my business, I feel this sentence more and more deeply .

Remember 2016 When I first started my business in, I was understaffed , Ensure the operation of the company , Many things are as small as cleaning 、 Assemble the computer , To the formation of the team 、 The operation of the company should be done personally . I remember we had a big project at that time , More than a dozen people in the company are out , Even the company's finance is helping us with data .

Is it difficult to start a business ？ I think it's hard , But in this difficult process , Feel that all our colleagues are with us , Grow with the company . This love , This warmth has achieved something with everyone's efforts , It is also a very pleasant and exciting thing .

Now, what pain points does love digital intelligence solve for the industry ？ How to solve these pain points ？

Zhang Qingqing ： For the industry , The biggest pain point is the lack of a large number of high-quality 、 Reliable voice data , Because the quantity and quality of data determine the upper limit of machine learning . about AI For enterprises and even the whole industry , Obtaining efficient training data is the key to success . Take me , My doctoral thesis was to study the pronunciation characteristics of Chinese speaking English , Collection required 200 The voice of Chinese speaking English was used in the experiment . In order to collect this 200 Personal voice , I hired a colleague 、 friend 、 Family members and even strangers on the road , I will hold him and say , Can you record it for me ？

I spent it. 300 Days finally collected 200 Personal voice , Then handle and clean , After being sent to the system ,1 The time system of days will send it to me 1 The results of experiments . in other words ,301 In a matter of days ,300 I've been processing data all day , I'm not the only one in this situation , The whole AI industry , quite a lot AI Practitioners are facing the same problem .

Actually , We hope to spend more time on AI Optimization of the model , And how to build a better system to get a better result , But we have to stop because of the data . So today, , We love to count what wisdom hopes to do , It is to provide more professional data services for all AI workers , Let everyone no longer bother with data collection and data cleaning .

Yes AI Company speaking , Generally, there are high requirements for the amount of data , There will also be high expectations for the acquisition cycle , Based on this , Our company has stored training data for different industries and some vertical scenarios in advance . At present, we develop data according to scenarios , Including smart appliances 、 call center 、 Online education, etc , We all have corresponding training data reserves .

In the near future, we will also build a global open source community , We will put a lot of data we have stored on the open source platform , For workers who are training in artificial intelligence . We very much hope that through such an open source action , Be able to push AI Move forward faster .

chart ： Zhangqingqing attends 2020 Guangzhou home appliance summit in

 

Open up ： Promote the development of forging industry AI The goddess

in fact , Zhang Qingqing is not just doing her own business , She also takes on the responsibility of being an entrepreneur , Continue to voice for the popularization and promotion of the data industry , It also offers suggestions for the establishment of relevant specifications and Standards , Even actively participate in the formulation of industry standards .

On this special day ,AI The goddess Zhang Qingqing combines her own experience , What blessings will be brought to the vast number of female compatriots ？

As an entrepreneur , What are your visions and expectations for the voice data industry ？

Zhang Qingqing ： From the first day I founded love counting wisdom , I'm very eager to bring more value to the AI industry , Push AI The industry is moving forward faster .

The data industry is an emerging industry , Many people don't know much about , It needs to be popularized and promoted repeatedly . Now love digital intelligence, including myself, hopes to have more opportunities to stand up and popularize the application of data , We also hope to participate in more industry summits and domestic and foreign exhibitions , Let more enterprises undergoing digital transformation realize the importance of data , And help them understand how to process data faster and better , It can really help them reduce costs and increase efficiency , Finally, it will bring more contributions to the industry and society .

Data as an emerging industry , In addition to the value of universal data , What else is worth doing ？

Zhang Qingqing ： Data is an emerging industry , At the technical level, there are many standards that need to be regulated and formulated , Formulating normative standards is a work that will benefit the future . As early as the beginning of the company , We participated in the national standard committee 《 Chinese speech recognition system evaluation specification 》 Work out .

Last year, we discussed with industry experts , It is mainly the experts from home appliance manufacturers who discuss the technical specification issues of smart home speech recognition related standards , We hope to further promote the formulation of voice related industry standards and norms . We are also actively participating in other industries , We hope that the knowledge accumulated in the data industry , The accumulated experience , Can become a standard , Be more AI Used by practitioners .

On this special day of Goddess' day , As a successful female entrepreneur , Have you sent some messages and wishes to the majority of female compatriots ？

Zhang Qingqing ： Women play a very important role in society , Women represent tenderness , At the same time, he is very resolute . I have done nearly in the field of speech recognition myself 20 year , Actually 20 Years ago, even 10 Years ago , Voice is not a very popular industry , At that time, many people didn't find their ideal job after graduation , Some may have changed careers , But interest makes me willing to continue to study in this industry . Until later, we saw the popularity of artificial intelligence , Everyone began to talk about voice 、 More and more attention is paid to images . this 20 I haven't left voice for years , I always regard it as a lifelong career .

Today is goddess day , The world is rich and colorful because of us , We always create value for our family and society 、 Wealth , But we should also remember ： Be yourself ！ We have the right to be ideal 、 Strive for a better life , Insist on being yourself ！ These are what I want to share with you today , Thank you very much ！ thank you ！

Zhang Qingqing said ：“ Women play many roles in society , It's a daughter , It's the mother , It's a wife , It's a colleague , It's the boss . Please don't forget , We're still on our own .”

Today is goddess day , Love counting wisdom. I wish the goddesses a happy holiday ！