Saturday, April 20, 2013

Technology - It CAN change the world

Despite being Saturday, I woke up early today and headed to MM31 for the Impact Weekend, which started with a breakfast at 9:30 AM. Good that they served breakfast, it helped me to sleep for extra 10 minutes :-)

So, we began our research to prepare the business canvas for this mobile app. We brainstormed on various things that can be done, about various technology barriers we may face, about funding and marketing, and lots of different stuff.

The key take-away for me today was that during our research we came across so many technology enablers for the hearing-impaired. Today, I am just going to list them here, so that you all can share it with your friends and family.

While there are so many mobile apps for the hearing impaired [I guess we found them to be around 257], available both in android versions and iphone versions, there is this one particular app, I am really impressed with.

This is an app in Google play store for Android phones - "isy" and its free.
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.isy&hl=en

Install it and activate the sensor for this app. Turn the vibrator-mode on for your phone and open this app. Then make a sound like a clap and you will feel the vibration of your phone and you will see a colored circle formation on your mobile screen, which tells you the intensity of the sound. Louder the sound, bigger the circle.

This app can be a handy tool, say for someone who is sitting in his or her home and suddenly the door bell rings; or for someone who is crossing a street and suddenly a car honks. Stay with me, and I will tell you the real fun of this app.

We also came across a website by D-PAN, which is an abbreviation for 'Deaf Professional Artists Network'.

http://d-pan.org/

This is a great site too. They have made many videos of songs, where the artist is using sign language to sing the song and they are really good with their expressions.

Now, try this, which I did while sitting in my room: Pick up any song from the video library on this site, start playing it and then turn the "isy" app on. It will vibrate as soon as it hears the first beat, and then for each beat, it will form circles, big and small, as per the beat.

I tried this video "It feels so good":
http://d-pan.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=225

So, if a deaf person is watching this video, he will get the expressions and the words; and with this app to compliment, he can visualize the music.
I think this is awesome.

I am going to show this to our group tomorrow, as it helps our case as well :-)

We also came across some amazing media - youtube videos and movies.

Daniel from our group suggested us this movie - 'Its all Gone -Pete Tong' [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388139/?ref_=sr_2] and Saswati confirmed that there is a Indian version of this - 'SoundTrack' [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soundtrack_%28film%29] : story of a DJ, who goes deaf due to daily exposure to loud noise and re-invents his life after discovering the vibrations on the speakers.

And, as if the clips from movie were not enough to make us all emotional, we found this video on youtube, of a 29 year old girl, who gets the hearing implant and hears herself for the first time:


I joined in the net impact weekend to know about social entrepreneurship, but my experiences of the day have taught me so much more.

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