🥇 This project recieved the first place prize at the 2021 Western Engineering Competition - Innovation!
🥉 This project recieved the third place prize at the 2021 Ontario Engineering Competition - Innovation!
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Full Video Presentation Click Here
OEC Board Click Here
The hearing impaired face a universal challenge; their lack of auditory clarity imposes natural limitations on them when in pursuit of education, employment, and general communication. Over 5% of the world's population, 466 million people have disabling hearing loss. In the education sector, it is estimated that 80% of the roughly 32 million deaf children around the world lack access to education altogether. The statistics in the employment sector are also bleak, with fewer than 40% of those with a hearing disability working full time due to the limitations of their impairment.
To help facilitate communication and aid the issues many of the individuals in the hearing impaired community face, We-Sign aims to create a seamless interaction between individuals with severe hearing impairments and individuals without this impairment. By using machine learning and natural language processing, We-Sign is able to recognize 24 of the 26 letters within the American Sign Language (ASL) framework when the user interacts with the device’s camera. The live feed is then carried through We-Sign’s interpretive software to display a message to the individual. A two-way interaction is achieved by allowing the individual receiving the text display to speak into the device’s microphone, where the message is displayed via text to the auditorily disabled individual.
To evaluate the fiscal feasibility of this venture, a marketing plan has been developed to integrate We-Sign into the community. The price point per unit is set at $300 which is approximately four times the estimated manufacturing cost of $75.80. In addition to making a profit, the pricing strategy ensures that other expenses are covered by We-Sign’s strong margins. Given how expensive most current hearing impairment assistive tools are, the low price point gives We-Sign a strong value proposition. This marketing plan not only provides the business with a strong foundation to continue its operations for years to come, but We-Sign’s various applications (such as schools, stores, and government offices) would be greatly beneficial to the auditorily disabled community and help to shrink the communication gap.