App turns Sign Language Converted Into Readable Text

For people with hearing and speech impairment, communication with the outside world is often an onerous task. Only members of their close circle of friends or immediate family make a genuine attempt at learning it.

When they step out into the job market, very few people try to learn sign language, and this creates real barriers to any sort progress in the professional sphere. Learning sign language isn’t easy, and it requires the same kind of aptitude and dedication needed to learn any spoken language.

Fortunately, there is an app on the way that could translate sign language into text and speech which will help society understand what people with speech and hearing impairments are communicating and vice versa. This app is being currently developed by a student-teacher duo from IIT-BHU, reports The New Indian Express.

The idea for this app was inspired by what 21-year-old Nikhil Dhaka, a fourth-year dual-degree student in biomedical engineering from IIT-BHU, did in a project for one of his courses. He initially developed an app that recognised hand gestures.

After assessing Dhaka’s project, his professor, Neeraj Sharma, who is also the HOD of the Biomedical Engineering Department, suggested that Dhaka could develop an app that could translate sign language, and thus smoothen the lines of communication between people with speech and hearing impairment vis-à-vis the general population.

At this moment, the app is in its development stage, and the aim is to bring it out in a year’s time.If this app comes to fruition, it could revolutionise the way Indians with such disabilities could function in mainstream society.

Reference: The Better India