Students, faculty and other members of the Pittsburgh community can pitch their ideas for using Alexa voice technology at Alexa Day @ CMU on Friday, May 12. The event, sponsored by the School of Computer Science, begins at 1 p.m. in room 152 of Posner Hall.

The Amazon Alexa Fund has committed $100 million to sponsor innovations in voice technology using Alexa devices. Ran Zhao, a Ph.D. student in the Language Technologies Institute (LTI) and the university's first Alexa Fund fellow, said Paul Bernard, director of worldwide corporate development for the fund, will be on hand to listen to the ideas and determine which ones merit further consideration for funding.

Space is limited for Alexa Day @ CMU; advance registration is requested.

In addition to sponsoring Zhao's fellowship, the fund donated Amazon Echo devices for use in this spring's Dialogue Systems project class taught in the LTI by Research Professor Alex Rudnicky and Professor Alan Black.