Creative Execution

Tencent identified a few areas in rural China where the population of left-behind children are high. Tencent approached schools in these areas and together with the teachers, requested the students to submit short stories about the love for their parents. Together with a team of psychologists, Tencent identified children that are the most vulnerable, emotionally. Once identified, Tencent located their parents in the cities where they work, and invited them to a recording session. Tencent obtained voice fragments from them, which is then fed into Tencent’s neural networks to create representations of them in different tonalities and stages of complexity. The AI system can replicate their voices, and make these voices read out sentences and stories, as long as the text is available. The AI system is housed in custom-build speakers which are then given to left-behind children. The AI speaker is rechargeable battery operated, so it’s mobile.

Speakers were produced and distributed to children in China’s vast rural areas. This created a conversation about the impact of rural-to-urban migration and how it affects the future generation of China. Online conversation about this issue was seeded on social media by key opinion leaders. On Weibo (China’s equivalent of Twitter), people are beginning to express appreciation and empathy for migrant workers. The project was shared on both Weibo and WeChat, gaining traction as time goes. There’s recognition for Tencent that uses its technology to innovatively alleviate societal issues. Most importantly, Hear My Love shines the spotlight on an issue that China forgets - in the rush for development, the rural areas are emptying into urban cities at a cost that China cannot afford to pay.

Hear My Love is an initiative by Tencent to help ease the emotional worries of left-behind children and their parents. Left-behind children are children who remain in rural China while their parents leave for work in urban areas. For most of these children, they are cared for by their grandparents or family friends, or in worse case scenario, left to fend for themselves. To kickstart, Tencent identified a few areas in rural China where the population of left-behind children are extremely high. Tencent approached the schools in these areas and together with the teachers there, requested for children to submit short stories about the love for their parents. Together with the teachers and a team of psychologists, Tencent identified children that are the most vulnerable, emotionally. These children and their parents are the ones that are selected for Hear My Love.