A 25 Y.O. Inventor From Kenya Just Invented Smart Gloves That Auto-Translate Sign Language Into Speech
More than 30 million people around the globe have speech impairments and are facing difficulties when it comes to communicating with people who have no knowledge of sign language. Roy Allela – a young and ambitious 25-year-old modern technology enthusiast from Kenya, recognized this problem, and it paved the way to his newest invention. Roy, who currently works at Intel and tutors data science at Oxford University, has invented smart gloves that convert sign language movements into audio speech.
More info: royallela.com
Roy Allela has a 6-year-old niece who was born deaf and had difficulties communicating with her family, who didn’t know sign language
Image credits: African Curators
Having recognized the need, Roy was inspired to create a new invention that would ease communication. That’s how the idea of smart gloves came to fruition. They are called Sign-IO and have flex sensors on each finger. The sensors quantify the bend of the fingers and process the letter being signed. The gloves are connected to an app via Bluetooth, which then vocalizes the letters.
“My niece wears the gloves, pairs them to her phone or mine, then starts signing and I’m able to understand what she’s saying”
Image credits: African Curators
Roy also added that his niece is very good at lip reading, so she has no problem in understanding what her uncle is saying. The young innovator has already introduced the smart invention to a special needs school in a rural area of south-west Kenya. The feedback from the audio translator users helped to understand which part of the tool needed improvement, which was the speed at which the language is converted.
“People speak at different speeds and it’s the same with people who sign, so we integrated that into the mobile application so that it’s comfortable for anyone to use it”
Image credits: Roy Allela
The users of the app can pick their native language, gender, and even pitch of the vocalization. The accuracy of the results is 93%. The audio is not the only customizable aspect of the gloves. They can be designed in any possible way – from princess gloves to Spider-Man ones. According to Roy, it helps to fight the stigma of being deaf and having a speech impediment – if the gloves look cool, every kid will want to know why you have them on.
Roy’s smart gloves recently won an award from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME)
Image credits: African Curators
The tech genius is using the prize money to improve the sign language translator app and implement more accurate vocal predictions. He hopes to place at least two pairs of gloves in every special needs school in Kenya and believes that they could help millions of children worldwide with hearing or speech disabilities. “I was trying to envision how my niece’s life would be if she had the same opportunities as everyone else in education, employment, all aspects of life,” Roy told the media. “The general public in Kenya doesn’t understand sign language, so when she goes out, she always needs a translator. Picture over the long term that dependency, how much that plagues or impairs her progress in life … when it affects you personally, you see how hard people have it in life. That’s why I’ve really strived to develop this audio translator project to completion.”
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Share on FacebookGod bless you Roy Allela for making this world a nicer, more friendly place to be. I hope your invention gets the recognition it deserves.
"This Deaf 6-Year-Old Girl’s Family Doesn’t Know Sign Language" Well, they should bloody well learn! But well done to Roy for his brilliant invention.
I thought that at first but then realised BP may mean extended family such as cousins, aunts and uncles etc. At least I hope that what they mean- parents who don't learn sign to communicate with their child? I would like to think that is not the case.
Load More Replies...This is a great invention, however, I wonder how the deaf community feels about this. They are very protective of the fact of being deaf and having the ability to sign. There are a lot of deaf families that will not give their child the cochlear implants to allow their child to hear.
Thank u. U are right it is a great invention but ASL is something we want to preserve because it is a big part of our culture and it creates bonds between people because we have equal access to communication.
Load More Replies...This should definitely be signal boosted! I do hope these become widespread and everyone starts using them soon, this is such a thoughtful invention.
I don't exactly get how is this work. I was studying HSL (Hungarian Sign Language) and the actual language is not only based on your hands/fingers' moves. But other elements too: for example the position of your hands regarding to your body, actively used parts of your head, arms. But also the move of your mouth and facial expressions are very important in SL. I guess some signs can be translated by a glove, abc for sure (which one?). For a more complex communication people should were many more sensors on their body. An other problem are the dialects and the fact that SL is a very flexible and authentic language. It has as many varieties as many people are using them. Anyway, good luck and thank you for the research and work to everyone who tries to create a device to translate SL!
I agree that this idea as is probably isn't a Rosetta stone yet, but its a huge fricking awesome step in that direction.
Load More Replies...This is beautiful, i can't believe these gloves actually got made!!!!!!!!
But it was invented and developed some years ago: Ukrainian Students Design Gloves That Translate Sign into Spoken Words https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/accessibility/2014/01/09/ukrainian-students-design-gloves-that-translate-sign-into-spoken-words/
Can you please be more specific? I clicked the link and did not see anything about what Ukrainian students designed. Thank you.
Load More Replies...I don't exactly understand how the kid can be already 6 years old but her family hasn't learned sign language yet.
I agree. That's a pretty terrible and lazy effort on her family's part.
Load More Replies...This is a stolen invention!!! Ryan Pattinson made almost this same exact device almost 20 years ago!!!
The best ideas are often simple ones...why did we not invent a way to 'translate ' sign language before...I really hope these will go mainstream
It's not that hard to learn sign language But it's wonderful invention tho!
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pascalbornet_innovation-technology-activity-6872402973918674944-67fy
Uhhh... these were invented in 2016. He may have just stolen this idea from these guys: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_571fb38ae4b0f309baeee06d
This is an amazing invention.. But, I would like to ask how would the being communicated to with the gloves respond to the girl?
That is amazing, This is what technology should be used for what an obvious yet genius idea!
Roy Allala is a hero. He provided opportunity to those who have hearing and speech impairment. Millions of people send blessings from the bottom of heart to Roy when they use smart gloves.
So can we give these to gorillas who know sign language and hear them speak?
Smart smart man! No matter how old I'm going to get, it'll never cease to amaze me the things I get to see invented on my lifetime, and o haven't even reached 40 yet!
This is eventually going to replace the job of people that are already doing this job
Thank you for your amazing invention!!!! You have made millions of people with communication challenges lives brighter!!!
I can't get over how absurdly incredible this is. That cat's sure got some brain power, my goodness.
https://4blind.com https://www.instagram.com/4blindpeople/ http://www.moskvaer.com/ru/российский-изобретатель-перчатки-бр/
1. Rasict 2. If you thought they were supposed to age, you would be commenting on how young he looks, which is young, not how he looks aged...hmmmmmmmm
Load More Replies...God bless you Roy Allela for making this world a nicer, more friendly place to be. I hope your invention gets the recognition it deserves.
"This Deaf 6-Year-Old Girl’s Family Doesn’t Know Sign Language" Well, they should bloody well learn! But well done to Roy for his brilliant invention.
I thought that at first but then realised BP may mean extended family such as cousins, aunts and uncles etc. At least I hope that what they mean- parents who don't learn sign to communicate with their child? I would like to think that is not the case.
Load More Replies...This is a great invention, however, I wonder how the deaf community feels about this. They are very protective of the fact of being deaf and having the ability to sign. There are a lot of deaf families that will not give their child the cochlear implants to allow their child to hear.
Thank u. U are right it is a great invention but ASL is something we want to preserve because it is a big part of our culture and it creates bonds between people because we have equal access to communication.
Load More Replies...This should definitely be signal boosted! I do hope these become widespread and everyone starts using them soon, this is such a thoughtful invention.
I don't exactly get how is this work. I was studying HSL (Hungarian Sign Language) and the actual language is not only based on your hands/fingers' moves. But other elements too: for example the position of your hands regarding to your body, actively used parts of your head, arms. But also the move of your mouth and facial expressions are very important in SL. I guess some signs can be translated by a glove, abc for sure (which one?). For a more complex communication people should were many more sensors on their body. An other problem are the dialects and the fact that SL is a very flexible and authentic language. It has as many varieties as many people are using them. Anyway, good luck and thank you for the research and work to everyone who tries to create a device to translate SL!
I agree that this idea as is probably isn't a Rosetta stone yet, but its a huge fricking awesome step in that direction.
Load More Replies...This is beautiful, i can't believe these gloves actually got made!!!!!!!!
But it was invented and developed some years ago: Ukrainian Students Design Gloves That Translate Sign into Spoken Words https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/accessibility/2014/01/09/ukrainian-students-design-gloves-that-translate-sign-into-spoken-words/
Can you please be more specific? I clicked the link and did not see anything about what Ukrainian students designed. Thank you.
Load More Replies...I don't exactly understand how the kid can be already 6 years old but her family hasn't learned sign language yet.
I agree. That's a pretty terrible and lazy effort on her family's part.
Load More Replies...This is a stolen invention!!! Ryan Pattinson made almost this same exact device almost 20 years ago!!!
The best ideas are often simple ones...why did we not invent a way to 'translate ' sign language before...I really hope these will go mainstream
It's not that hard to learn sign language But it's wonderful invention tho!
https://www.linkedin.com/posts/pascalbornet_innovation-technology-activity-6872402973918674944-67fy
Uhhh... these were invented in 2016. He may have just stolen this idea from these guys: https://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_571fb38ae4b0f309baeee06d
This is an amazing invention.. But, I would like to ask how would the being communicated to with the gloves respond to the girl?
That is amazing, This is what technology should be used for what an obvious yet genius idea!
Roy Allala is a hero. He provided opportunity to those who have hearing and speech impairment. Millions of people send blessings from the bottom of heart to Roy when they use smart gloves.
So can we give these to gorillas who know sign language and hear them speak?
Smart smart man! No matter how old I'm going to get, it'll never cease to amaze me the things I get to see invented on my lifetime, and o haven't even reached 40 yet!
This is eventually going to replace the job of people that are already doing this job
Thank you for your amazing invention!!!! You have made millions of people with communication challenges lives brighter!!!
I can't get over how absurdly incredible this is. That cat's sure got some brain power, my goodness.
https://4blind.com https://www.instagram.com/4blindpeople/ http://www.moskvaer.com/ru/российский-изобретатель-перчатки-бр/
1. Rasict 2. If you thought they were supposed to age, you would be commenting on how young he looks, which is young, not how he looks aged...hmmmmmmmm
Load More Replies...
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