São Paulo – Two Brazilian software, Hand Talk and MyFunCity are competing for best application for mobile telephony in the world in the World Summit Award-Mobile Content competition, to take place from February 4th and 5th, in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab Emirates.
The World Summit Award-Mobile Content is organized by the International Center for New Media, from Austria, coordinated by the United Nations (UN). The competition, established in 2010, is aimed at selecting the main applications for use with mobile telephony on the planet.
Developed by three youths from Alagoas, Hand Talk helps in communication with the death, “transforming” words from the Portuguese language into sign language.
“We work with technology and have always had interest in developing something in the social area,” said Ronaldo Tenório, CEO at Hand Talk, which goes by the same name as the application. Tenório and his other partners, Carlos Wanderlan and Thadeu Luz, started their research with associations of deaf people to understand their difficulties in communications.
The application, which is not yet fully developed, operates in three functions: from text, sound or text images, like a picture of a page of a book or magazine, for example. Hand Talk makes words into Brazilian Sign Language (Libras) symbols, using a virtual character, named Hugo, to make the hand gestures, similar to those used by the deaf.
“Most of the deaf cannot read or write in Portuguese. Sign language is their official language,” explained Tenório, pointing out the difficulties for teaching literacy to the deaf as a reason for school evasion by people with this impairment.
For the prototype to be put on the market the company still needs to add words to the application. According to Tenório, in the test phase they are using between 4,000 and 5,000 words in Portuguese. When ready, the partners want to make the application available at virtual stores for free downloading.
Hand Talk has already won three awards in technology events in Brazil, at Demo Day Alagoas and at Info Rio. The awards resulted in the invitation to participate in the competition in Abu Dhabi. “We received an e-mail from the award organizers inviting us to enrol,” he said.
Enrolled in category “inclusion and empowerment”, Hand Talk is competing with applications from Portugal, Japan, Ecuador and Germany. The competition has eight categories, with 40 runners. The finalists receive a stamp that classifies their programs among the best in the world.
To decide what the best product is in each category, participants will make a presentation to the jury on February 4th, and the result comes out on the 5th. Among the people to view the presentations will be potential investors in the projects in the finals.
“We know that there are many good projects and that we are among the top five in the world, which already brings great repercussion,” said Tenório. “Expectations are for us to return with closed contracts and several contacts,” he finished off.
Businessmen are also developing the use of software for use on commercial and governmental sites that must supply hearing impaired audiences. For this, they are seeking investors and partners.
MyFunCity
ANBA tried to talk to those responsible for MyFunCity, but got no answer. According to the application’s site, it was developed to help users evaluate quality of life in cities, like safety, traffic, green areas, visual pollution and others. Through questions answered by users, the software develops maps based on approval or disapproval of those visiting urban spaces.
*Translated by Mark Ament