Source: Make: DIY Projects and Ideas for Makers
There are an estimated 100,000 deaf people in Italy today, and a startup called LiMiX is revolutionizing the way they can communicate. LiMiX’s main product, Talking Hands, is a glove and accompanying app that translates Italian Sign Language (or LIS, Lingua dei Segni Italiana) to voice. The implications are life-altering. An estimated 99% of the world’s population doesn’t understand sign language.
No longer will that matter. Signed words are translated to signals that are then sent to a voice synthesizer on a smartphone and spoken, dissolving language barriers.LiMiX cofounders Francesco Pezzuoli and Dario Corona met and started collaborating as students at the University of Camerino, located in central-eastern Italy (and established nearly 700 years ago!). Their development was progressing, but In 2016, something extraordinary happened that kickstarted their trajectory: they won the R.O.M.E. (Rome Outstanding Maker of Europe) Prize at the 2016 Maker Faire Rome, along with the 100,000 euro prize money. The selection criteria were based on social impact of the proposed idea and economic sustainability (real chance to establish themselves and grow in the market). They were also able to secure valuable connections at Maker Faire Rome to help accelerate their development and production of this groundbreaking device. The team is currently working toward a product release in 2019.
We connected with Dario to learn more.
1. How did you and Francesco first meet and start collaborating?
We met at university as students, during a research project for the development of a lower-limb exoskeleton for disabled people. We worked really well together from the very beginning, and creating a startup together was an obvious decision when we realized that Francesco’s idea of Talking Hands has enormous potential.
2. What inspired you to apply your skills to finding a solution for hearing-impaired people?
In 2013, an American company organized a competition for the best idea for the application of EMG technology, which enables understanding the fingers’ movement through the detection of muscle activity. Francesco thought to use this technology to translate sign language. Unfortunately, EMGs cannot recognize the positions of single fingers, so it was not enough for a sign language translation application. But the idea remained, and after two years, we decided to use our skills to develop the right technology for this purpose.
3. How long have you been working on Talking Hands? What has the R&D process been like?
We started at the beginning of 2015, creating the first functional prototypes using gardening gloves, hand-sewing the sensors, implementing commercial components, and deeply studying the scientific literature to find the best algorithm solution.
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