(G)love to hearing impaired people
Lucky Netshidzati grew up in a family where both parents are hearing impaired. This inspired the 26-year-old to invent a glove which will help in the communication of people who are hearing impaired.
LIMPOPO – The young entrepreneur is the co-founder and CEO of Rudzambilu Holdings (Pty) Ltd and was born and bred in the rural village of Tsianda Ha-Mutsha outside Thohoyandou.
Netshidzati says growing up was not easy for him as he always struggled to communicate with his parents. That is why he came up with the idea to invent the concept glove sensor in 2015. “In 2018, I met Tebogo Mthombeni who is an IT engineer and the owner of the company BIFI Technologies. We worked together to develop the glove,” explains Netshidzati.
The glove translates South African sign language into voice and text. “You can also make phone calls on the glove sensor when connected to the mobile application we created, which can be installed on your mobile phone. It will assist the hearing impaired to communicate with people without any communication barrier,” he adds.
Netshidzati further says that hearing impaired people usually received the given wrong medication in health facilities, but the glove eases the communication between the health practitioner and those who are hearing impaired.
When explaining how they have developed the software to translate sign language into voice speech, Netshidzati said the first prototype they used, used flex senses to detect how much a finger has bent. “We moved to other ones which used context senses as well as a gyroscope that can tell the orientation of the hand,” he said.
Though the glove is not yet available on the market, they are calling on investors to come on board to invest in their innovation so they can start manufacturing and selling the product.
“We need an amount of R15 million to roll out the product. People in rural areas are struggling and some of the people who are hearing impaired are dropping out of school because they struggle to communicate,” concludes Netshidzati.
To invest contact Lucky Netshidzati at 066 020 1590 or Lucky@rudzambilu.co.za.
