Software engineer and Intel programme manager Roy Allela is the founder and lead engineer for Sign-IO, a glove that translates sign language to speech. The aim is to assist individuals with a speech impairment (deaf or mute) to communicate with the general public.
Allela invented Sign-IO as a way for himself and others who cannot sign to communicate with the deaf – in Allela’s case, with his deaf niece. The glove recognises various signed letters and transmits this data to an Android application, where it is then vocalised.
The gloves are a monumental step in bridging the language barrier between the hearing and the speech and hearing impaired. More than 30 million people around the globe have speech impairments and rely on sign language.
The young engineer’s goal is to place at least two pairs of gloves in every special-needs school in Kenya and to eventually be of help to the 34 million children worldwide who suffer from disabling hearing loss.
Source: This Is Africa
[https://thisisafrica.me/roy-allela-bridges-language-barrier-with-sign-language-glove-translator/](https://thisisafrica.me/roy-allela-bridges-language-barrier-with-sign-language-glove-translator/)
