KOCHI: Being unable to communicate with others seamlessly is a big problem. Frustrating at most. One that people with speech and hearing impairment face when conversing with an able-bodied person. Hence, imagine if people with hearing or speech impairments could get their hands on a device that converts the sign language that they use into text or speech. It would be wonderful, wouldn’t it? Such a device has been developed by a team of students from Saint GITS College of Engineering in Kottayam. And they have won a prize for the unique, innovative device.
SignVisor, the device, was developed as a final-year project by the fourth-year BTech Computer Science students. But what is SignVisor? Sharlet George Kurien, a member of the four-member team, explains, “It is a smart glass interface for sign language translation.
It is a pair of spectacles. But a smart one at that.” When the team was looking for ideas for the final-year project, they wanted to come up with one that was socially relevant. “When it comes to hearing or speech-impaired people, communication is one big task. Though they know sign language, it is not necessary that the people with whom they communicate necessarily understand it. So we wanted to come up with a device that would remove this hurdle,” he said.
Their SignVisor now provides the solution. “A speech or hearing-impaired person can use the smart glass, which has been fitted with sensors that would convert the sign language into a multimedia format. The spectacles will be worn by the hearing and speech-impaired person,” said Sharlet. According to him, the goal is to aid the special needs communities in education, healthcare, and daily life.
“We aim to bridge the gap and reduce the inequalities, thereby offering an inclusive society,” he added. The team comprising Sharlet George Kurien, Nevin K Mathew, Muhammad Afran and Navaneeth Vishnu K, guided by Dr Nisha Joseph from the Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Saint GITS College of Engineering, will be taking forward their project.
“This is just a prototype. But we will be looking at fine-tuning SignVisor into a lightweight device. We will surely bring out this device in the market. At present, specialised systems can reach up to $3,000. However, we are planning to make the device cost-effective. Our device would cost somewhere between Rs 6,000 and Rs 10,000.
Also, we won’t be going for retail sales. We will be specifically looking into supplying the device to organisations or schools for the speech and hearing impaired people. In the later stages, the device will be further upgraded to include others in the special needs spectrum,” said Sharlet. He pointed out that they had won the platinum award at KPIT Sparkle. “We were selected from 18,114 ideas submitted at the contest that was held on 5 March, 2026,” he added.