Dell and Intel's voice-banking book 'I Will Always Be Me' — ADC Best of Show 2023

Motor neurone disease gradually takes away a person's speech. Voice banking can preserve it, but the standard process means reading long lists of random words for hours — emotionally brutal and often producing a robotic-sounding result, so many people never do it.

Write a story whose sentences contain every sound needed to synthesize speech, so a 30-minute read banks a digital voice for someone losing theirs to MND.

Dell, Intel, Rolls-Royce, the MND Association and VMLY&R commissioned author Jill Twiss to write 'I Will Always Be Me,' a letter from someone with MND to their loved ones, engineered to contain all the sounds and syllables needed for voice synthesis. Patients read it aloud on the campaign website; the 30-minute recording becomes a digital voice for assistive speech devices, and a documentary film showed families using the book for the first time.

The book compressed a task that took many draining hours into one meaningful 30-minute read, and its emotional copy produced a higher-quality digital voice. The work won the Cannes Lions 2022 Pharma Grand Prix and the ADC 102nd Annual Awards' Black Cube Best of Show, and turned a technical process into a public conversation about identity and technology.

Motor neurone disease (MND, called ALS in the US) gradually takes away a person's ability to speak. Voice banking can preserve a digital version of the voice for assistive devices, but the standard method — reading thousands of random words over many hours — is exhausting and emotionally brutal, and often produces a robotic result.

Dell Technologies and Intel, together with Rolls-Royce, the UK's Motor Neurone Disease Association and agency VMLY&R, turned that chore into a story. Bestselling author Jill Twiss wrote 'I Will Always Be Me,' a letter from someone with MND to their loved ones, engineered so its sentences contain every sound and intonation needed to synthesize a voice. Reading it aloud takes about 30 minutes.

The recording, made through the campaign's free website, is converted into a digital voice that works with speech-assistive technology. The emotional content does double duty: it makes the task bearable, and the natural cadence of meaningful speech produces a better-quality digital voice.

A documentary showed families experiencing the book for the first time. The campaign took the Cannes Lions 2022 Pharma Grand Prix and the ADC 102nd Annual Awards' Best of Show Black Cube, and turned a technical process into a statement about identity — everything changes, but the person remains themselves.

It used the companies' actual expertise — AI voice synthesis — as the product, not as a gimmick wrapped around a product.

It redesigned an unbearable task into a 30-minute act of love, so the desired behavior finally became something people would do.

The story itself carries the medical purpose: reading it both banks the voice and explains the disease to the reader's family.

Two tech giants gave the capability away free to patients, building trust and purpose around brands usually associated with enterprise sales.

Apply your core technology to remove friction from something painful: the voice AI became both product and story, turning an unbearable chore into a gift patients give the people they love.

The project became one of the most decorated purpose campaigns of its era: the Cannes Lions 2022 Pharma Grand Prix, and at the ADC 102nd Annual Awards in 2023 the Best of Show Black Cube with three Gold Cubes and further honors in Interactive. Voice banking remains a promoted pathway for the MND Association, and the project is remembered as a landmark of tech companies applying AI to preserve a person's identity rather than to sell more hardware.