The different Arabic dialects often make it harder for voice recognition services to understand and analyse the transmitted language.

This was a problem Syrian entrepreneur Lojain Jibawi wished to tackle when in 2012 he launched Votek, an Arabic speech recognition technology that recognizes standard Arabic and dialects and works both offline and online.

The technology he developed is being used in different applications. Loujee is one of their latest creations.

Loujee is a smart toy that operates via an iOS app. Once turned on, children can have a conversation with it and it will recognize any Arabic dialect. It can tell jokes and answers questions, and interacts with the children.

In this interview with Wamda Jibawi talks about his journey and demonstrates how the Loujee toy works. [press CC for English subtitles]