John Rye

John Rye founded Meridian One Speech in 2006 to be able to offer low cost alternative TTS to users of fast intelligible speech worldwide using the unique Orpheus TTS engine. John has developed Orpheus over many years, first at Dolphin Oceanic, part of the Dolphin Group, and now here at Meridian One. Some of the ideas and work have evolved over many years linking right back to John's first involvement with speech synthesis and coding at the British Government's Joint Speech Research Unit in Cheltenham from 1979 to 1982.

John also worked at the Centre for Speech Technology Research in Edinburgh while on secondment from Marconi Speech and Information Systems in 1991.

Besides his very long-standing involvement with Speech and TTS in particular, John has also worked in real-time software for industrial processes. He has a wealth of experience in areas critical to software development; he has for instance introduced systems of software QA and Configuration control into organisations. His management experience at all levels from software project to department level and served for several years on the board of the Dolphin Group.

John has published papers, is a patent signatory and has talked on aspects of speech coding and speech synthesis, but has spoken and written rather more on the issues, usefulness and techniques involved in generating fast intelligible synthetic speech in particular.

John obtained a first degree in Physics from the University of Southampton in 1977, and an MA in Management Studies from the University of Worcester in 2005. John is also a member of the Institution of Engineering and Technology and the Chartered Management Institute

Outside of his professional life John is a family man with two grown up daughters. He is an occasional mountaineer, and has gasped his way to the top of many a peak and crag at home and abroad over many years. This he claims to find enjoyable. He is interested in local and national politics as well as international affairs, and has actively helped organise campaigns for the UK Labour Party.

John is deeply indebted to all those in the speech community, especially colleagues from the former JSRU, from CSTR as well as all former colleagues and employers for that help and advice given over the years.