Knowledge For All

Break the narrow barriers of Language and knowledge is free.

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Inspiration

India is a land of great heritage & culture. Yet, this is the same land that faces one of the largest evils of society - illiteracy. According to the 2011 census, more that 25% of its inhabitants are incapable of reading and writing. The added problem is the fact that majority of the knowledge resources like books, magazines, newspaper and online articles are in English; which is primarily due to the nation's colonial past.

I am inspired to use technology to bring social good for those segments of society, which are constrained by social inabilities and help them break the barrier to elevate their learnings, status and mindset.

What it does

I am proposing to build a web application that is capable of converting any image or text into speech. The speech will be delivered into multiple Indian languages and thereby cater to a vast majority of the population who is English illiterate. I have chosen web application as the media since a large segment of the society will have access to community hardware like desktop computers and basic internet through local village body, society or political setups.

How I built it

I used Flask and Python to build an User Interface for uploading image and/or text. I also used Google libraries and Python modules to convert image to text (OCR) , translate and convert text to speech.

Challenges I ran into

This is the first time that I used Google libraries for AI operations. Managing and installing dependencies was a challenge.

Accomplishments that I am proud of

I am very proud of the concept that I am proposing and I am hopeful that a thoughtful and planned implementation of this approach can do wonders for many of my fellow countrymen. I am willing to spend more time on this project to give it a bigger shape.

What I learned

I researched and learnt about social structures, status and conditions of Indian Populations. On the technology front, I learnt a lot on AI and also explored about the current status and implementations of AI libraries.

What's next for "Knowledge For All"

A bunch of features need to be built

  1. Use Computer Camera to take a photo of a book/article (if used from mobile device) rather than upload.
  2. Add more Indian languages and provide abilities for personalisation
  3. Save the voice translations and allow to build a library which can be used from time to time
  4. Provide support for Off internet connectivity ( This is very important for Indian rural situations)
  5. Build a common library of useful knowledge articles that can be played
  6. The quality of translation from english to Indian languages is not great. Learn more about them and explore the possibility of bringing in improvements.

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