BloomBoxers

From Divya, Sanvi, Ruchir, Rishi and Raanan Imagine Cup: We are Class 10 students from NPS Koramangala. We are our entry for the prestigious ‘Imagine Cup Junior’ competition under the theme “AI for Good’ to Microsoft. (Coach: Gopal Swaminathan, father of Divya). We are expected to present an impactful concept that can change the lives of disadvantaged people using Microsoft AI Technologies. Problem Statement (to be improved) As per WHO estimates, over 1.5B people ww live with hearing loss. 430M of them have disabling hearing loss. The same study points at over 61M Hearing Imparied people in India. They have a range of impairment - from profoundly deaf to partially deaf. Employment (to be improved) Due to their limitations, a large percentage of people with hearing impairments are not matriculates. That limits their employment opportunities. Hearing loss and deafness pose challenges to both workers with the impairments and their employers Only 26% of hearing impaired people in the employable age group of 15-59 years are full time workers. Where can they work Retail, Salon, Healthcare labs, Data entry, IT Services Here they do limited, structured interaction with customers and colleagues. Functional Notional Language Most workers in above work scenarios can learn language and phrases related to their job at hand. This is the quickest way of becoming productive in a workplace with alien language. The Hearing Impaired workers can also learn ‘Sign Language’ that will be specific to their work scenario - instead of learning the entire vocabulary. Bloombox Bloombox is an app that will help the careers of the people with hearing disability bloom in selected situations. This will be an Android app that will be connected to an Android tablet. It will enable two way interaction between a customer (speaking in natural language) and a person with hearing disability (replying back in Indian Sign Language). Imagine Vinod. He is a hearing imparied worker in a retail billing counter. The customer talks at the counter. There is a mike kept in the corner that listens to the customer’s voice. AI translates identifies the language and translates it from ‘speech’ to ‘text’. The Tablet screen is facing the Hearing Impared worker with the Bloombox app open. The translated ‘text’ is displayed in the app. Vinod knows ‘Retail Sign Language’ very well. He does a series of hand gestures to reply to the customer. The AI from the app translates the hand gestures into speech in the language in which the customer spoke. The same is spoken to the customer through a speaker kept at the counter. He uses some ‘shortcuts’ for statements like ‘Hello Mam’, ‘Thanks for visiting our outlet’. That makes it easier. The Bloombox app will also filter out any potentially offensive or unwanted content that arise out of wrong hand gestures or incorrect interpretation.

Bloomboxers is a 5 member team from the 10th Grade at NPS Koramangala. Student Members: Divya Gopal Sanvi Bhujang Rishi Rajesh Raanan Bhayana Ruchir Kulshrestha Ruchir and Rishi are in charge of Primary Reserach. Their job is to validate the idea by talking to People with Hearing Disability, potential employers and Non-Governmental Support organisations. Ruchir and Sanvi are in charge of Secondary Research. Their will be building the data and statistics required for the project decisions. Raanan and Rishi are AI Researchers. They will build the knowledge required on Microsoft AI and other platforms that are used in the project. Sanvi and Divya are owners of the Communication pillar. They will create the presentation and the script required for the video. Ruchir and Raanan will take care of the UX Design. Rishi and Divya will work on making the video. Coach: Gopal Swaminathan is the coach and he runs his own software firm. He is the parent of Divya Gopal