NCFU’s young AI developers have designed a mobile app to help people with disabilities.

A team of NCFU students have developed an app to install on smartphones, which can recognize Braille and translate it into conventional text and speech. This product has the potential to improve the life of visually impaired people, as well as their parents and teachers, who are not familiar with the Braille system.

–  NCFU is promoting actively AI-related projects, and I can say that more and more young and talented engineers get inspired with various innovation-based AI ideas to be implemented in our daily life. IT is especially important when it comes to improving communication and training offered to people with disabilities, – Dmitry Bespalov (Rector, NCFU) noted.

The app is now available in GooglePlay and has over 4,500 active users from different countries.

As Mukhammadkodir Abduvoitov (student, Institute for Digital Development, NCFU; one of the app developers) noted, the product is good indeed for both visually impaired children and their parents and teachers. Besides, the region of Stavropol suffers from a lack of qualified staff to teach visually challenged kids, so this app will be really useful.

The project is of social value and has already been awarded at artificial intelligence shows, including at the Archipelago 2121 Accelerator, where it entered the TOP 100 best projects. The project was also presented at the NCFU Techies Accelerator, and received a grant in the Open Data Cup competition, as well as it was good enough to advance to the final at the Global Best mGov Award international contest held in Dubai (UAE). The final results are to come out in early February 2023 at the Dubai World Government Summit.

The project has also gone as far as to the semi-finals of the Astana Hub Battle – a technological startup project international contest, and as soon as February this year, the city of Almaty will host the Digital Almaty Forum 2023 International Forum, where the project is to be presented. The event in question is the largest Tech event in Kazakhstan involving businesses, international experts, the IT community, public agencies and the media.