Tawasol is an innovative system of four components that assists Deaf people to communicate and interact with others through a computer. These four components are: The Arabic Sign Language Dictionary, the deaf reader, the touch typing for Deaf and the software for Learning Arabic essentials for Deaf. The dictionary uses 2500 digital video for Arabic signs and 5000 illustrations for 25oo word classified into 53 groups.
The Deaf reader is an Arabic-To-Sign translator that uses advanced AI techniques and Arabic morphological Analyzer to translate Arabic sentences into digital Sign Video. The Touch Typing tutor helps Deaf reaches 50 words per minute in typing with accuracy better than 90%.
To help Deaf enter correct Arabic to the computer, the Arabic essentials software was developed. It help deaf to learn alphabets, how to form words form letters and how to form sentences from words using the proper grammar.
Tawasol is a cloud application that will be applied in 200 deaf schools in Egypt. It will be used to develop curricula for Deaf and will be used to train teachers and parents on Arabic sign Language.
The project will be extended to build a mobile application that will allow tow way communication between a Deaf and noram person
1. From Exclusion to Empowerment : Role of ICT
for Persons with Disabilities
Inclusive and Innovative Technological Solutions for Sustainable
Societies
TAWASOL
Khalifa Computer Group
3. The only thing deaf people cannot do is hear
360 million people worldwide have disabling hearing loss.
http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs300/en/
Although there are no official statistics for the number of deaf people in
Egypt, a 2007 study by the World Health Organization estimated that hearing
loss is prevalent in 16% of the population of Egypt. This percentage
corresponds to more than 13 million people across all age groups.
http://deafunit.org/the-deaf-in-egypt/
http://applications.emro.who.int/emhj/1305/13_5_2007_1170_1180.pdf?ua=1
If deaf children receive a good and suitable education then they are every
bit as capable as hearing people.
http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001255/125541ev.pdf
4. When ever we say deaf, we think of sign language
Signed languages are the natural languages of deaf people. They
are the languages Deaf people use when they communicate with
one another
Sign language is a real language , exactly like all other languages.
Except it couldn’t be written nor pronounced. It is a set of
movements of hands , arms, lips and facial expressions.
It is mainly used by deaf people for communication , expression
of their feelings, telling stories , learning and teaching
Without knowing normal people the sign language, It will be very
difficult for them to communicate with Deaf people
5. Deaf child can do anything that hearing child can do, except hearing, but
there are challenges to achieve that.
On the National Level (Egypt)
• Sign language is not fully unified all over the country
• The sign language is not recognized by the government.
• Most of deaf people are not educated
• No unified resources for teachers to teach deaf other than the curricula
given to normal students which do not consider the disability for Deaf.
• No access to resources deaf can understand through their sign language.
• Due to poor communication with the society, the deaf communities are
isolated
• No chances for jobs.
On the International level
• Most of the developing countries have the same main above problems
• The Modern Countries such as USA, UK, France and others have advanced
systems to help their deaf overcome their difficulties.
• No social platform is utilized for deaf communities to communication with
each others all over the world.
• And More…
20. Arabic Morphological Analyzer, and words speller
• It uses built-in Arabic morphological
analyzer for analyzing the sentences and
displaying according sign videos.
• It could understand the time where the
verb happened, the Plural and single ,
Feminine and masculine as well as
Pronouns.
• If a word is not existing in the dictionary,
it finger spells the word.
21. TAWASOL
Arabic Sign Language Dictionary
Deaf Reader
Touch Typing for Deaf
Arabic Fundamentals for Deaf
37. Deaf Reader : a plugin for internet browsers to interpret Arabic to Sign Video
38. • Text to Speech
• Text to Video Sign
• Voice Recognition
• Chat History (Sign,
Text, Speech)
• Word Auto Complete
39. • Our Cloud Based Solution “Tawasol” provides a
complete (input/output) accessibility solution for deaf
in Egypt.
• Tawasol does not need any special hardware and is
using digital video for signing which was proved as the
best over the Avatar.
• Artificial Intelligence is used for translating Arabic
text into the Egyptian sign language with high
accuracy.
40. • The system will be applied in 200 deaf schools and
1000 integration schools for MOE in Egypt and will be
utilized by Teachers academy for training of teachers
on Egyptian sign language. It will the base for
developing curricula for Deaf.
• The developed innovative technologies can be used
for any sign language in all Arab countries and can be
modified for other native languages.
41. Khalifa Computer Group has developed an innovative
system for Deaf which supports enabling, empowering
and inclusion of them in both the Education system and
the Jobs market. The “Tawasol system” brakes the
barriers between deaf, the society
and the world.
New phases of the project will deal with more
improvements and applications for the infra-structure
which was built in the first phase.
42.
43.
44. Khalifa Computer Group
162 King Faisal St., El Haram, Giza , Egypt
Tel: +2 02 33837794 / 33829604
Mob: +2 0111 444 2161
Marketing@khalifaonline.com
www.khalifacomputergroup.com
Editor's Notes
Hello every body,
My name is Mohammed Khalifa the CEO of Khalifa Computer Company (KCG) based in Egypt , KCG is specialized in software and web solutions since 1984.
I will show you today an innovative cloud based solution for people with hearing disabilities.
The main objective of the solution is the Empowerment of people with hearing disability.
The empowerment have main three gears; Education that requires communication which steers the socialization and led to skills development.
Before we start, I would like to share some facts with you.
The only thing that deaf people cannot do is hearing.
International statistics estimates that 360 million people worldwide have disabling hearing loss. World health Organization.
Although there are no official statistics of the number of deaf people in Egypt, a study by WHO estimates that hearing loss is prevalent in 16% of the population of Egypt.
If deaf children receive a good and suitable education then they ary every bit as capable as hearing people.
When ever we say deaf, we think of sign language
Sign language is the main communication language between deaf.
Sign language is a real language, exactly like all other languages except it couldn’t be written nor pronounced.
It is a set of movements of hands, arms, lips and facial expressions.
Deaf persons use the sign language for communication, expression of their feelings , telling stories, learning and teaching.
It is easier for deaf persons to learn sign language as rather than other langueges.
Although the deaf child can do anything that hearing child do, except hearing, there are challenges to achieve that.
On the national level in Egypt and for the Arabic language specifically
The sign language is not fully unified all over the country
The sign language is not recognized by the government
Most of deaf people are not educated and illiterate.
- There are no unified resources for teachers to teach deaf other than the curricula given to normal students which do not consider the disability for Deaf.
There are no tools nor resources in sign language for deaf to understand.
- Due to poor communication with the society, the deaf communities are isolated
There are no skills development and hence there are no chances for jobs , especially in the modern world.
Main challenges internationally are :
Most of the developing/ developed countries have the same main above problems.
There are no
Khalifa Computer Group partners in this projects was selected to help solving the main issues mentioned earlier.
The Ministry of Education ; is to provide the approved the content and to enforce the unification of the sign all over the country through education in Deaf and Merging schools.
The Local Deaf organizations are the third party partners through the MOE for approving provided content of the sign language through workshops and cooperation with Deaf Organizations and deaf people.
The Ministry of Communication and Information technology; is for provide consultation guidance as well as coordination of implementation of project in schools, and other government institutions.
Before we go with the solution,
We can simply highlight the main tracks of IT researches for providing tools for communications between normal and deaf persons.
The First direction is to convert the signed languages into text then to speech , and the other track is to convert the speech into text then to sign language.
Thus, it is two way communication between normal and deaf person.
The conversion of sign to text, is still facing real challenges.
Also, the conversion from text to sign have much challenging especially for facial expressions when it uses Avatar.
We have selected the track that empowers deaf people by education through sign language to read and write using technology, and hence they will be able to text to speech as they are talking.
For the other direction we use speech to text to VIDEO signed language, making it easier for them to fast-forward the communication between them and the normal people.
And of course the integration with sign to text upcoming technologies.
Tawasol is the name of our solution , Tawasol means Communication.
Tawasol is for deaf and normal people, it is for families , students and teachers.
If we need a real empowerment of deaf persons, Tawasol will be for everybody.
Tawasol is a cloud based solution for scalability and accessibility with no place or time limitations.
The outcomes of the first phase of Tawasol includes four products:
Arabic sign language dictionary
Deaf reader
Touch Typing for Deaf
And Learn Arabic Fundamentals for Deaf
Two out of Tawasol four applications in this first phase will be provided on CDs as versions.
The Arabic Sign Language Dictionary
Learn Arabic Fundamentals for deaf.
The Arabic Sign Language Dictionary is the core application of the solution, it includes more than 2500 Arabic words with video signs and more than 5000 images with average of two images per word.
It also includes the Arabic alphabets and the English alphabets with signed videos.
The words can be found either by searching with first litter or by searching in subjected categories.
The Arabic Sign Language Dictionary is accompanied with sentences translator, which is a limited version of the Deaf Reader Application.
The ArSL Dictionary is educational tool for both hearing and deaf people.
The number of words, signed videos, and images will be increased with cooperation of MOE and Deaf NGOs during the project extensions. Specific Dictionaries will be implemented in the future to cover other professional fields i.e Since, Math, Politics etc…
The alphabets tab of the ArSL Dictionary provides signed video for each alphabet in both Arabic and English with friendly interface.
Each word in the dictionary is attached with its signed language video and one or more images.
The images are to provide the meaning of words for deaf, also in the future extensions of the project we will provide short videos for clarifying the meaning of verbs.
This screen shows the grouping of words in subjects
The Sentences Reader in the dictionary is a limited version of Deaf Reader, it allows users to type in any Arabic sentence and translate it into Arabic signed language videos.
The reader is using Arabic morphological analyzer that analysis the Arabic sentence and displays the correct sequence of signed videos.
It is main source of data is the ArSL Dictionary, its maturity of translation depends on the number of signed videos in the dictionary.
We will talk in more details about it in the Deaf Reader.
Tawasol is a cloud based solution for scalability and accessibility with no place or time limitations.
The outcomes of the first phase of Tawasol includes four products:
Arabic sign language dictionary
Deaf reader
Touch Typing for Deaf
And Learn Arabic Fundamentals for Deaf
The deaf reader is the most innovative application of the solution. It is considered as the first step towards the interpretation of Arabic to Sign language.
Of course the electronic interpreters cannot completely replace human interpreter, but it could help.
The deaf reader main purpose is for opening channels of communication between both hearing and deaf, as well as education purpose.
The deaf reader is smart application, it could compose video signs for words that are not in the dictionary according the resulted analysis of the sentences.
It uses built-in Arabic morphological analyzer for analyzing the sentences and displaying according sign videos.
It could understand the time where the verb happened, the Plural and single , Feminine and masculine as well as Pronouns.
If a word is not existing in the dictionary, it finger spells the word.
Tawasol is a cloud based solution for scalability and accessibility with no place or time limitations.
The outcomes of the first phase of Tawasol includes four products:
Arabic sign language dictionary
Deaf reader
Touch Typing for Deaf
And Learn Arabic Fundamentals for Deaf
Touch Typing Application for deaf main objective is to enable them to use their computer keyboard for typing fast, for the purpose of communication and developing their skills in using computer keyboard for job opportunities.
The application is utilizing sign language in the training.
It provides training for both Arabic and English keyboarding.
Each user has his won account that records his progress and posts it on the website for job opportunities.
The application main screen includes a guide explained in sign language and two modes of training; the free mode and the sequencial mode.
The free mode is for freely browsing and training on any of the available exercises.
The sequential mode is for training with objectives driven. The training is guided, the user have to meet speed and accuracy objectives to move to the next exercise.
The application stores the progress of the user and shows him his scores for each exercise.
The interface is clean and friendly, the user can access the opened exercises for training and once he achieve the accuracy and speed objectives, the application will enable the next exercise.
The touch typing screen presents a virtual keyboard highlighting the next key to be pressed on the keyboard, the signed alphabet, and which fingure to user for pressing the next key.
During the practice the wrong pressed key (alphabet) is highlighted and the current accuracy and speed is shown.
The user can view his progress for each language and exercise on the application.
At specific achievements of progress for the user on each language, the Touch Typing application enables him to publish his profile on a website dedicated for hiring data entry skilled deaf.
This website is being marketed for all companies , institutions and organizations for data entry calibers.
So by the end we have opened the opportunities for deaf people to have real job after training.
Learn Arabic Fundamentals for Deaf
The main objective of this application is to teach deaf people the Arabic language fundamental using the sign language for the purpose of being able to type correct structured Arabic sentences, and to learn some grammar.
Every Chapter in the application is explained in sign language and attached with images, examples and evaluation.
The application have three main chapters and exercises with evaluation.
Chapter for learning Arabic alphabets.
Chapter for learning words and some grammar
Chapter for learning sentences, some grammar and subjects
Each lesson in the application starts with its educational objectives for both teachers and students.
The alphabets chapter includes explanation of Arabic alphabets, its movements and how to write the alphabet in words with examples.
The words chapter is divided into five units, each unit focuses on specific subject (Family, School, etc..)
Each unit includes some grammar explained simply in sign language, vocabulary relative to the unit subject, and ending with quiz and evaluation.
Formulating correct sentences is the main objective of the application, in the learn sentences chapter we teach them some grammar grouped by same subjects in the previous chapter. Practice and evaluation are existing in each unit.
In the second phase of the project,
We will add more words to the dictionary, Improve the deaf reader , develop more application and go mobile
For the Sign Language Dictionary , we will add more words to reach at least 5000+ words attached with their video signs and add more images and some animations to the verbs.
We will also, improve the capability of the deaf reader and develop a plugin for internet browsers to allow deaf to select Arabic text and directly translate it to sign language on the browser. This will open more windows of learning resources for deaf persons.
At the next phase we will go mobility , we will develop a smart chat mobile application for deaf, so they can chat with each others or chat with hearing people.
The application will feature text to speech, speech recognition, and text to sign.
It will keep the history of the conversations and will feature auto complete of words.
This application will be built on the deaf reader technology and the sign language.
The results could be summarized as the following
Tawasol Cloud based solution provides a complete (input / output) accessibility solution for deaf in Egypt.
Tawasol does not need any special hardware and is using digital video for signing which was provided as the best over the Avatar.
Artificial Intelligence is used for translating Arabic text into Egyptian sign language with high accuracy.
The solution will be applied in 200 deaf schools and 1000 integration schools for MOE in Egypt and will be utilized by Teachers academy for training of teachers on Egyptian sign language. It will be the base for developing curricula for Deaf.
The developed innovative technologies can be used for any sign language in All Arab countries and can be modified for other native languages.
The Conclusion
Khalifa Computer Group has developed an innovative system for Deaf which supports enabling, empowering and inclusion of them in both the Education system and the Jobs market. The “Tawasol system” could brake the barriers between deaf, the society
and the world.
New phases of the project will deal with more improvements and applications for the infra-structure which was built in the first phase.
Than you with worm love
Any Questions?
Khalifa Computer Group
162 King Faisal St., El Haram, Giza , Egypt
Tel: +2 02 33837794 / 33829604
Mob: +2 0111 444 2161
Marketing@khalifaonline.com
www.khalifacomputergroup.com