| Ministry/Division |
: |
Ministry of Post, Telecommunications & Information Technology |
| Agency |
: |
Bangladesh computer Council (BCC) |
| Procuring Entity Name |
: |
Executive Director, Bangladesh Computer Council |
| Procuring Entity Code |
: |
3039 |
| Procuring Entity District |
: |
Dhaka |
| Expression of Interest for Selection of |
: |
Consulting Firm (National) (Lump-Sump) |
| Title Of Service |
: |
Development of Bangla Speech to Text & Text to Speech Software (SD 09) |
| EOI Ref. No. |
: |
56.01.0000.029.32.31.17-163 |
| Date |
: |
04/04/2019 |
KEY INFORMATION
|
| Procurement Sub-Method |
: |
Quality and Cost Based Selection(QCBS) |
FUNDING INFORMATION
|
| Budget and Source of Funds |
: |
Development Budget GOB |
| Development Partners |
: |
None |
PARTICULAR INFORMATION
|
| Project/Programme Name |
: |
Enhancement of Bangla Language in ICT through Research & Development Project |
| EOI Closing Date and Time |
: |
16/04/2019 12:00 PM
|
| Publication Date |
: |
04/04/2019
|
INFORMATION FOR APPLICANT
|
| Brief Description of Assignment |
: |
The following points describe the scope of the Development of Bangla Speech to Text & Text to Speech Software in brief:
For STT:
1. The vendor has to develop an efficient and effective bangla automatic and real time speech to text (STT) engine that can recognize the speech and generate a transcript from a raw audio or human produced speech in Bangla.
2.The engine must be corpus driven, AI based and multimodal. The engine should be able to work in various applications (but not limited to) like dictation, caption from video content, cation lecture, meeting transcription, call centers, device control/IoT, mobile texting, handsfree interface, question answering system etc
3.The STT engine must be able to recognize all types of sentences and must be capable to handle all types of punctuation marks used in Bangla Language.
4. The vendor must relese API/s for external use and integrate the STT system with other copmonents of this project like input systems, spellcheker, integration platform etc. Also the vendor will develop a model that must be capable to learn from user data continuously.
5. The engine must able to detect inter-generational and inter-regional speaker’s voice.
6.The vedor must build a speech collection and processing platform to annotate and handle the speech corpus. Also the the vendor must provide the labeled balanced corpus with proper guideline dedicated to STT/ASR engine.
7. The versions of the engine should be workable in different platform that include light-mobile version and heavy-duty server version.
For TTS:
8.The TTS engine should convert Bangla texts to an audible Bangla speech with a powerful NLP backend and a high quality Natural liked Voice system at the frontend.
9. The TTS engine must be able to detect Bangla simple to complex orthographic character, consonant cluster, conjuncts and form of various characters. Must have ability to detect the variation of interrogative, negative, exclamatory and optative sentences. Must read and follow all punctuation marks used in Bangla Language. Also, must be able to detect formatted numbers conversion like Date, Time, Float, Currency, Ordinal, Expression etc from the running text.
10.Must have prosodic and Intonation feature control to produce more natural speech.Voice mood of the system should be normal with additional voice mood range as well as voice frequency to indicate sadness, happiness, whispering or screaming.
11.Must have annotated big corpus with guideline dedicated to TTS engine.
12.The vendor must relese API/s for external use and integrate the TTS system with other copmonents of this project like Screenreader, integration platform etc. Also the vendor will develop a model that must be capable to learn from user data continuously.
13. The vendor must provide extentions for most popular browsers and DTP softwares integrated with TTS
For STT & TTS:
14.The product in different phases of the software development will be tested by the team of nominated consultants.
15.All the documents including the source code and test script will have to be provided to the Project Authority for further maintenance and extensibility of the Component/ Software.
16.All the firms should solve the intellectual property issues.
17.The firm must have to maintain the specified Standard which will be determined by the Procuring Entity and details will be given at RFP.
18. All deliverables of the component/s will be government properpty as per PPR and PPA. No second or third party branding and ownership is allowed. The developed products convey logos and links of ICT division, BCC and Project only.
EBLICT Project now invites eligible firms to indicate the interest for providing the services. Interested firms are invited to provide information indicating that they are qualified to perform the services as mentioned in the serial number 17: Experience, Resources and Delivery Capacity Required. This will require substantiation through submission of brochures and other documents describing similar assignments, experiences, availability of appropriate professional qualifications and experiences among applicant’s staffs, resources to carry out the assignment, financial capability, etc. A firm may associate with other firm to fulfill their qualifications.
A shortlist of firms will be prepared upon evaluation of EOIs of the eligible firms and “Request for Proposal” documents will be issued in their favor. A firm will be selected using the Quality and Cost Based Selection (QCBS) method. It is expected that the services will commence on October 2019.
|
| Experience, Resources and Delivery Capacity Required |
: |
This is a national project with utmost importance towards achieving the Vision 2021: Digital Bangladesh. The firms must prove that they have solid technical background and operational strength to undertake and move this work forward without any hindrances. The firms must also have adequate technical ability, resources, and processes. As such, following are defined as minimum eligibility criteria:
1. The firm must have minimum 5years experience in Bangladesh about software and services;
2. The firm must have practical experience of developing NLP (Text, image, Signal) based Software, Big Data analytics, AI based language related software development.
3. The firm having experience in development STT & TTS system will be added an advantage.
4. The firm must have sufficient system architect, software developers and Bangla Language Specialist (in high, medium and low levels) having experiences in developing high quality applications.
5. The firm having experience and specialist in Artificial Intelligence, Neural network, machine learning, Big data management will be an added advantage;
6. The firm must have full-time professionals capable of running large scale system in all major platforms (e.g., Windows, Mac, Linux, android, Web Server Based).
7. The firm should have sufficient experience and knowledge with the functionalities and architectures of both commercial and open source.
8. The firm having experience in developing software solutions for Government of Bangladesh will be an added advantage;
9. The firm should demonstrate its management capacity (brochures and other documents describing similar assignments, experiences, availability of appropriate professional staffs and experiences among applicant’s staffs, resources to carry out the assignment) in managing large scale projects;
10. The firm has to demonstrate its logistical capability, i.e., well-equipped office space in Dhaka with necessary facilities;
11. The firm must have the sufficient amount of liquid assets, i.e., working capital or credit line(s) supported by competent documents;
12. The firm must have update-audit-report of previous 5 years. The firm must have submitted yearly turnover report/documents;
13. The firm should have valid up to date trade license, income tax and VAT certificates;
14. The firm should provide a detail specification module of the components/software as per understanding of the firm;
15. JVCA is allowed as per PPA-2006& PPR-2008; But all the firms must be Bangladeshi firm.
|
| Other Details (if applicable) |
: |
The REOI would be reviewed on the basis of the following:
1. Experience of the firm(s) in NLP/Language Technology Software Development .
2. CV of Key professionals
3. Turnover of the Consulting firm
4. Other submitted document of the firm
5. Details Specification Module
6. History of litigation (if any) in courts or any arbitrations proceedings.
Interested firms shall obtain further information from the Project Office from 10:00 AM to 4:30 PM in any working day before the closing date. Firms shall have to submit 2(Two) copies of EOIs and forwarding letter in a sealed envelope labeled with “EOI for Development of Bangla Speech to Text & Text to Speech Software” to the following address.
More information on this project can be obtainedfrom http://www.bcc.gov.bd/
|
| Association with foreign firms is |
: |
Not Applicable |
| Eoi Detail Information |
|---|
| Ref No |
Phasing Of Services |
Location |
Start Date |
Completion Date |
| 56.01.0000.029.32.31.17-163 |
NA |
Dhaka |
October 2019 |
March 2021 |
|
PROCURING ENTITY DETAILS
|
| Name of Official Inviting EOI |
: |
Dr. Md. Ziauddin |
| Designation of Official Inviting EOI |
: |
Project Director, Enhancement of Bangla Language in ICT through Research & Development Project |
| Address of Official Inviting EOI |
: |
8th Floor, ICT Tower, E-14/X, Agargaon, Sher-e-Bangla Nagar, Dhaka-1207 |
| Contact details of Official Inviting EOI |
: |
Phone : 55006841, Fax : 912462, Email : pdeblict@bcc.gov.bd |
| The procuring entity reserves the right to accept or reject all tenders |
