Press photo © ZeroBionic
In Kenya, an entrepreneur has created a robotic hand that can translate a teacher’s voice into sign language for deaf students.
Some 300,000 children in Kenya are either deaf or hearing impaired, and not only are just a fraction them enrolled in school, but Kenya lacks any standardized signed language, making concepts like math and science difficult to teach.
ZeroBionic was founded by 22-year-old Norah Kimathi to allow these students to be taught by teachers who themselves don’t know sign language, dramatically expanding their educational opportunities.
Each robotic hand is 3D-printed from recycled plastic litter and sold at the cost of $350. They can last 3 years without maintenance, and ZeroBionic has already sold 78 such units.
Kimathi said they boast a 92% speech-to-sign accuracy rating, yet designing the mechanics of the arm was only half the battle. When it came time for the ZeroBionic team to input the translation to signs, they realized that there was no unified Kenyan or African sign language dataset to avail themselves of.
They enlisted the help of deaf teachers and other experienced signers to record the movements and patterns of signed speech using an electrode-lined bodysuit which had to be imported.
ROBOTS AT WORK:
“No one else had built this on the continent … We had to start from scratch,” Kimathi told AFP from the company’s tiny lab in Nairobi, who added that all the effort has nevertheless been worth it.
“We know we’re going to put a smile on someone else’s face,” she said.
The mechanical arms are just the first step. Next, they want to expand to Africa One, a robotic upper torso that can substantially increase the accuracy and vocabulary of African sign language.
Watch the story below from Reuters…
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