We have received this email which might be of interest to BATOD members:
Femi, my son, and Imran, one of our young coders who has a hearing impairment – along with a team of our young coders have been busy working through the many different aspects of the Sign2Word AI App. At this stage they have done a demo of what the App will do – along with BSL captions (https://youtu.be/2c-KJXnNxn4).This forms part of the research surveys we are now sending out. The team is 50/50 balanced in terms of gender and BAME – also represent disability and neurodiversity.
They have entered the Sign2Word App to the Nesta Longitude Explorer Prize and have got through to the final which is on 22nd June and it is crucial that they can show that they have reached out to the Deaf community for essential feedback and to check if they have identified the problem correctly and that their App is a welcomed solution to address it. At this stage they have done a demo of what the App will do – along with BSL captions. This forms part of the research surveys we are now sending out.
We have had some really great feedback from Communication Support Workers who have said it would be a great tool for them, too, as they can create their own learning packs of key words to send to their learners – that will be used during lessons and at home during independent learning. I think it is a positive thing that the App is in no way about replacing a signer but will enhance learning with the signer – ensuring consistency when a stand-in CSW is used as they can download the learning packs as well. Imran stated that different signers sometimes sign slightly differently and it can be like learning something new rather than consolidating learning.
Please do give me a ring back on 07961 849040 with some critical feedback. I would really like to get a response from you too – that I could take back to encourage the team to keep going. They have also been encouraged to be nominated for the Tech4Good Awards because of the potential positive impact the App could have on learning.
Here are the surveys – please could you forward to anyone who fall into the following categories:-
For Deaf learners who use sign language (all BSL captioned): https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Sign2WordDeafLearners
For those who support Deaf learners: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Sign2WordEducation
For parents of Deaf learners: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/Sign2WordParent
The next stage would be to develop some partnerships/further funding opportunities – after responding to the feedback they get at this stage. They are also developing a proof of concept – integrating a TensorFlowLite NN in React Native so they can show how the App can capture and classify data. However, they hope to get more specialist/academic collaboration for the actual machine Learning elements at a later stage.
Kind regards
Grace Owolade-Coombes