UIT Students team wins first prize at ‘Geeks 2019’ competition

KARACHI: Usman Institute of Technology (UIT) affiliated with NED University of Engineering and Technology, Karachi, is proud to announce that UIT students have won the first prize out 60 innovative ideas at ‘Geeks 2019’ at an open house exhibition and project competition recently held at Bahria University Karachi.

Under the able supervision of Rehan Ahmed Khan the UIT students Bilal Khan, Sadaf Khan, Fadzeela Moeen and H.M Mubashir Ghaffar presented the idea of ‘Speech generation from Hand Gesture Recognition (SG Glove)’ for vocally impaired people which emerged as a clear winner with its elucidating contribution and social impact.

The SG Glove provides a way to bridge the communication gap for vocally impaired people. The glove can translate Urdu sign language to text and speech nearly instantaneously. The students believe language to be a fundamental human right.

So they created a glove that breaks down the language barrier for the vocally impaired community, which consists of a significant amount of people. With this project the students wanted to capture the intricacies of the Urdu sign language, which is a difficult task in itself. In its current iteration the SG Glove is equipped with sensors that send data on hand position and movement to a central computer, which processes the corresponding word or phrase and then delivers it almost instantaneously through a speaker.

Zahir Ali Syed Director, said - “Everyone should be able to communicate with everyone else, it's about breaking down these barriers. Really good ideas can come when students can collaborate. That's the impact we are going for. When we talk about things being accessible and connecting people and making an impact the students found that language and communication was the piece that holds it all together. We are proud of our students’ accomplishments and wish the winners all the best for all their future endeavors.”