#Roomies, have y’all heard about Roy Allela? Lemme tell ya about the 25-year-old Kenyan technology evangelist who has invented smart gloves that convert sign language movements into audio speech.
Created to make life easier for his niece, Allela stated in an interview with The Guardian:
“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. Like all sign language users, she’s very good at lip reading, so she doesn’t need me to sign back.”
According to The Guardian, “The gloves – named Sign-IO – have flex sensors stitched on to each finger. The sensors quantify the bend of the fingers and process the letter being signed. The gloves are paired via Bluetooth to a mobile phone application that Allela also developed, which then vocalizes the letters.”
So far, the invention has won the “Hardware Trailblazer Award” from the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and was also a second runner-up at the Royal Academy of Engineering Leaders in Innovation Fellowship in London.
The Sign-IO gloves are still in the prototype phase and received awards to help further enhance and improve the invention, which is “expected to generate revenue of around $30 billion by end of 2024,” according to Global News Wire.
There are over 30 million people who live with speech impairments and this is extremely helpful.
I just wanted to put you on to this information because it’s important we know just how impactful we are.
