How AI technology gave Neale Daniher his voice back
Here's how the technology works.
MND is a degenerative autoimmune disease that damages nerve cells in the brain and spinal cord responsible for controlling muscles, which slowly impedes the person's ability to move and speak.
But the eye can be resistant to the degeneration, so eye-gaze technology has been developed to help patients communicate.
Eye-gaze technology involves the user looking at a keyboard or phrases on a screen, while an infrared-sensitive camera tracks their eye as it moves. The camera uses the pupil as a centrepoint and the light reflecting off the eye to detect movement, allowing the user to spell out or select words, according to research and development company Eyegaze Inc.
Daniher, 64, has used the technology to record his words which are converted into an animated voice. He was using that technology in January when he made his acceptance speech as Australian of the Year, an award bestowed on him for his fundraising efforts to find a cure for MND.
The voice has a similar robotic cadence as that made famous by fellow MND sufferer Stephen Hawking, though the theoretical physicist used a cheek muscle to dictate to a computer once he lost the use of his hands.
But with the latest AI developments that allow for voice cloning, Daniher has been able to communicate using a voice, tone and style that sounds remarkably like he did beforehand.
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Jackie French wants you to think long and hard about who you nominate for Australian of the Year. And it's not because she found her time as Senior Australian of the Year in 2015 such hard work. It's because of all the things she was able to achieve in those 12 months. Nominations for the 2026 Australian of the Year, Senior Australian of the Year, Young Australian of the Year and Australia's Local Hero close at midnight on July 31. The only way someone can be considered for the annual awards, which were first presented in 1960, is if a member of the public nominates them. A decade after she received the honour, as she encourages Australians to think about who to nominate for the 2026 awards, French has recalled her own award's impact on her work. The environmental campaigner and author of novels like The Whisperer's War and beloved children's books like Diary of a Wombat spent her time as Senior Australian of the Year promoting literacy and urging others to recognise the transformational power of reading, creativity and storytelling in the lives of young people. And everywhere she went, people listened to her. "One of the hard things, though, when you're an advocate and you've got a short period of time is that some things can just be done with the stroke of a ministerial pen," she said. "Getting dyslexia classified as a disability, getting the way teachers are trained changed, getting a prototype of what that could look like." Having overcome dyslexia herself, she's passionate about having it recognised more easily in schools so that as many children as possible can get help early. CLICK HERE TO NOMINATE SOMEONE NOW! "I think I expected that within a couple of weeks or a couple of months, everything would change. And of course, it hasn't. People have to be trained. People have to be trained to actually train the trainers, who then need to train the teachers," she said. "[But] it's the way that teaching reading and writing in our schools is changing because of the work I did that year." But she also saw other changes happen quickly. "You can get things done. [For example] speaking to the Northern Territory chief minister, in a very Northern Territory way - he was actually holding a beer at a backyard barbecue - about why my literacy needed to be taught in prisons, which was one of the other things I campaigned for," she said. "I went to prisons and drug rehabilitation areas around Australia, finding out that just about every person in a medium security prison wasn't able to read or write. "And just at the barbecue, the chief minister said, 'Well, they're doing nothing else but sitting on their arses, aren't they?' He calls over his PA or whatever it was and said, 'We'll get it done'." But she cringed at the memory of being invited to the Lodge and lambasting then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at his approach to changing copyright laws, even while she was shaking his hand. "I'm still very embarrassed ... but it was the only way. I knew that greeting or shaking hands was the only time I was going to give a meeting with him." She also played a role in reversing a proposal for a mine near her home in Majors Creek, NSW, to process cyanide upstream of the community's drinking water. And she still cherished the memory of realising that she and her fellow recipients were, for the first time, all women. "We did an enormous amount of work," she said of the ensuing 12 months. "It was absolutely gruelling work that we did to get the projects going, and we kept checking on each other, just saying, basically, how are you going? "And I suspect we may have been the only group of recipients who did that, and I think it was again, because we were all women." 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Jackie French wants you to think long and hard about who you nominate for Australian of the Year. And it's not because she found her time as Senior Australian of the Year in 2015 such hard work. It's because of all the things she was able to achieve in those 12 months. Nominations for the 2026 Australian of the Year, Senior Australian of the Year, Young Australian of the Year and Australia's Local Hero close at midnight on July 31. The only way someone can be considered for the annual awards, which were first presented in 1960, is if a member of the public nominates them. A decade after she received the honour, as she encourages Australians to think about who to nominate for the 2026 awards, French has recalled her own award's impact on her work. The environmental campaigner and author of novels like The Whisperer's War and beloved children's books like Diary of a Wombat spent her time as Senior Australian of the Year promoting literacy and urging others to recognise the transformational power of reading, creativity and storytelling in the lives of young people. And everywhere she went, people listened to her. "One of the hard things, though, when you're an advocate and you've got a short period of time is that some things can just be done with the stroke of a ministerial pen," she said. "Getting dyslexia classified as a disability, getting the way teachers are trained changed, getting a prototype of what that could look like." Having overcome dyslexia herself, she's passionate about having it recognised more easily in schools so that as many children as possible can get help early. CLICK HERE TO NOMINATE SOMEONE NOW! "I think I expected that within a couple of weeks or a couple of months, everything would change. And of course, it hasn't. People have to be trained. People have to be trained to actually train the trainers, who then need to train the teachers," she said. "[But] it's the way that teaching reading and writing in our schools is changing because of the work I did that year." But she also saw other changes happen quickly. "You can get things done. [For example] speaking to the Northern Territory chief minister, in a very Northern Territory way - he was actually holding a beer at a backyard barbecue - about why my literacy needed to be taught in prisons, which was one of the other things I campaigned for," she said. "I went to prisons and drug rehabilitation areas around Australia, finding out that just about every person in a medium security prison wasn't able to read or write. "And just at the barbecue, the chief minister said, 'Well, they're doing nothing else but sitting on their arses, aren't they?' He calls over his PA or whatever it was and said, 'We'll get it done'." But she cringed at the memory of being invited to the Lodge and lambasting then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull at his approach to changing copyright laws, even while she was shaking his hand. "I'm still very embarrassed ... but it was the only way. I knew that greeting or shaking hands was the only time I was going to give a meeting with him." She also played a role in reversing a proposal for a mine near her home in Majors Creek, NSW, to process cyanide upstream of the community's drinking water. And she still cherished the memory of realising that she and her fellow recipients were, for the first time, all women. "We did an enormous amount of work," she said of the ensuing 12 months. "It was absolutely gruelling work that we did to get the projects going, and we kept checking on each other, just saying, basically, how are you going? "And I suspect we may have been the only group of recipients who did that, and I think it was again, because we were all women." READ THEIR STORIES In the same year, she was named National Children's Laureate, and said she found the double responsibility quite overwhelming. "I really urge people to nominate, but when you nominate, remember the criteria," she said. "This isn't for someone who has done something wonderful. That's what all of the awards are for - the King's birthday awards and things like that, for what people have already done when you nominate them. "Nominate someone who can use that year to really, really make a difference." Help find the 2026 Australian of the Year, Senior Australian of the Year, Young Australian of the Year and Australia's Local Hero by nominating someone you admire. The only way someone can be considered for the annual awards, which were first presented in 1960, is if a member of the public nominates them. Nominate online at or scan the QR code on this page. Nominations close at midnight on July 31.
