Mumbai: Team ‘Ishaara’ from K J Somaiya Institute of Technology has been felicitated at the prestigious India Impact Festival 2024 for its groundbreaking work in leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) for social impact. The team secured first place in the ‘AI for Accessibility’ category at the Intel AI Global Impact Festival 2024.
The accolade was presented by prominent leaders, including Shri Jayant Choudhary, Minister of Skill Development and Entrepreneurship, Ashutosh Sharma, Secretary, Department of Science & Technology, and Santhosh Viswanathan, Vice President and Managing Director, Intel India Region.
Team Ishaara developed an AI-powered platform that translates Indian Sign Language (ISL) into text and speech across 12 languages, fostering inclusion and accessibility for India’s deaf and mute communities. This innovative solution earned the team global recognition, along with individual prizes of $1,500, certificates, and internship opportunities at Intel.
The Intel® AI Global Impact Festival is an annual platform that celebrates transformative AI solutions across three categories:
AI Changemakers (Ages 13-18)
AI Changemakers (Ages 18+)
AI for Accessibility
The festival aims to highlight AI’s role in driving meaningful social change, bringing together industry leaders, technologists, academicians, and government representatives.
Team Ishaara, comprising final-year Computer Engineering students Tanish Kaur, Yatharth Wazir, and Yashkumar Dubey, was mentored by Dr. Dhanashree Toradmalle. The platform employs a custom Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) model trained on 722 video gestures for ISL-to-text translation, supplemented by machine translation and natural language processing (NLP) for seamless text and speech conversion.
“This platform bridges critical communication gaps for India’s deaf and mute communities, enabling real-time, multilingual ISL translations and advancing social inclusion,” said Dr. Sarita Ambadekar, Head of the Computer Engineering Department, K J Somaiya Institute of Technology.
“We are incredibly proud of Team Ishaara’s accomplishment, a testament to the talent at K J Somaiya Institute of Technology and their dedication to responsible AI. The development of such an AI-powered tool is definitely a step towards providing a solution to persons with hearing impairment for effective communication.,” said Dr. Vivek Sunnapwar, Principal of K J Somaiya Institute of Technology.
Reflecting on the achievement, mentor Dr. Dhanashree Toradmalle shared, “Developing Ishaara has been an inspiring journey. This recognition underscores the team’s unwavering commitment to harnessing AI for inclusivity and social responsibility. We extend our heartfelt gratitude to the Somaiya Management & Trust for their support in fostering innovation.”