In 2001, University of Iowa Professor Jerald Moon wanted to show students in his phonetics class how the sounds of different languages are produced.

Moon knew his students could one day work with people who have speech disorders, so a deep understanding of how the tongue, lips, voice box, and other organs work together to make sounds was important.

A collaboration with Information Technology Services (ITS) led to the creation of a website called Sounds of Speech, which demonstrated through video, animation, and audio the proper placement of sound-producing organs when pronouncing English and Spanish sounds. The website unexpectedly became popular with English language learners around the world. 

Shortly after launching, the website was receiving millions of hits a day. Now a mobile app as well as a website, Sounds of Speech remains popular among English language learners and speech pathologists.

Moon and ITS approached the UI Research Foundation (UIRF), which copyrighted the app and began selling it for Android and Apple smart phones. It has since totaled about 37,500 downloads, has generated about $131,000 in sales, and has been imitated by numerous other language app developers. The Sounds of Speech website, which is still free to the public, has about 7,000 users each month.