On September 5-6, 2023, members of the EASIER consortium won the first prize for the signing app “Donate a Sign” at the SRG SSR Hackdays in Zurich.
Background
The lack of sign data available for the training and development of authentic, expressive, and reliable avatar models presents a challenge, which the team is actively trying to solve. The main idea behind the signing app “Donate a Sign” is to further develop a sign language contribution app to enhance research datasets for advancement of automated sign language services.
The team used the hackathon to find solutions – they wanted to enhance the dataset for all swiss sign languages (LIS, LSF and DSGS) to make the country more accessible. The foundation of this challenge is an android video app developed in the context of EASIER and another European research project, MediaVerse. In the hackathon, the team wanted to reach a more user-friendly design to upload specific signed content, preferably with metadata (language, translation, sign language level etc.) and finally connect the app via API to the accessibility repository, which can then be accessed via PDP.
More about this hackathon challenge, here.
About SRG and its hackdays
SRG is the largest media house in Switzerland comprising five enterprise units: Radiotelevisione svizzera (RSI), Radiotelevisiun Svizra Rumantscha (RTR), Radio Télévision Suisse (RTS), Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen (SRF), and SWI swissinfo.ch (SWI). Organized every tear, the SRG SSR Hackdays bring together hundreds of participants who contribute their expertise and enthusiasm, helping to shape product developments and the collaborative culture within SRG and its enterprise units. Within 24 hours, software and hardware engineers, designers, journalists, and interested people from other disciplines work on new products and approaches. Without any guidelines from the organizer, the participants throw themselves into the floods of feasibility, trying to solve various challenges.