An app for people with speech impairments wins the innovation competition

An application for the autonomy of individuals with communication difficulties has won Campus Mobile, a national competition for innovation and entrepreneurship held by the Society for Integrated Technology Systems Laboratory (LSI-TEC), sponsored by the Claro Institute and supported by Escola Politécnica da USP and B en Claro, Claro Innovation Center .

Developed by a college student from lonlinessLoriComunica is an alternative communication solution that allows the speech and cognitive development of people with autism, cerebral palsy and aphasia. a Requestmade available by Joyce Quirobino, helps people who are unable to communicate verbally to speak through clicks and eye movements.

LoriComunica reproduces sentences through a synthetic voice and uses computer vision to navigate the system by simply blinking or smiling, among many other features.

The idea, according to the student, came from the experience of her mother, an occupational therapist, who had difficulties communicating with intubated patients due to complications from Covid-19. “I decided to use my mother’s account to create an application that facilitates non-verbal communication with these people, and when I was starting my graduation project in Computer Science, I decided to turn the idea into my subject. The most challenging part of the implementation was the techniques used, as I had to do in-depth research on each architecture And a library I decided to use in building the app.” grades.

The university student believes that the biggest contribution of the project is to give voice and independence to those who have limitations in verbal communication, whether they are children or adults with different diagnoses such as cerebral palsy, autism, stroke, etc., and in different environments such as as hospitals, clinics, schools or anywhere else.

Joyce stresses that Campus Mobile was a great learning opportunity that allowed her to understand and enter the world of startups, validate the app idea and feel able to open her own company.

In all, Campus Mobile, an initiative implemented by the Integrated Technology Systems Laboratory Association (LSI-TEC), sponsored by the Claro Institute and supported by beOn Claro, the Center for Operator Innovation, and the University of São Paulo Polytechnic (USP), awarded six projects in the categories of Diversity, Education, Games, Health and Cities Smart and smart farms. Award-winning students receive an immersion trip to Silicon Valley, California, to deepen their knowledge of the technology, as well as monetary value.