When Madhav Lavakare was in Class 11, his friend, who suffered from a hearing impairment, had to quit school. On Probing, he found that his friend was deaf and Hard of hearing and it affected understanding information and affected his performance and school.
Madhav began to think of a solution that could translate information into text captions and put them on a heads-up display
He began researching on Google, watching YouTube videos, and teaching himself aspects of programming, mechanical engineering, design, optics, electronics and other aspects for building the device. “I approached a few technical mentors in the process, including Professor P V M Rao at IIT Delhi, two persons from Google in the United States, and two working professionals from the UK and India, both with hearing loss. They gave me encouragement, guidance and essential feedback to understand the challenges faced by people with hearing impairment,” he says.
After many years, and prototypes, he was able to build a product at about Rs 4000/- (i.e. around 50 USD) the product is in final stages.
Check out more info about this innovative youngster and his product at https://www.transcribeglass.com/features.html and https://www.transcribeglass.com/about-us.html
