HUAWEI LAUNCHES STORYSIGN A UNIQUE AI-POWERED APP FOR THE DEAF AND HARD OF HEARING CHILDREN

Huawei uses thepower of AI to help deaf children and their parents learn and enjoy readingtogether

Sydney – Australia 

Huawei Aurtralia has today announced the launch of StorySign, an AI-powered app that helps enriching story time for deaf and hard of hearing children and their parents. This follows the global announcement earlier this month. There are approximately 32 millions deaf children globally and around 250-400 deaf children are born in Australia each year*. Many struggled to learn to read, often due to lack of options that help bridge sign language learning and reading. StorySign uses the power of Huawei’s AI (Artifical Intelligence) to create an authenthic reading experience, helping to open the world of books to deaf children and their families. 

Pioneered by Huawei and available in Australia from February 2018. StorySign will feature the popular children’s book, Where’s Spot at launch. With the help of StorySign’s friendly avatar Star and using the power of Huawei AI, the app translates the featre book into perfect sign language page by page delivering a seamless, happy and rewarding experience. 

“At Huawei, we believe in the power of AI and that technology can make a positive difference in the world,’ comments Lisa Connors, Huawei Australia Corporate Responsibility Manager. “we created StorySign to help make it possible for families with deaf children to enjoy the truly magical moments of story time. Created with experts and charaties from the Deaf community. StorySign was developed to ensure its use as a genuinely useful tool for families with deaf and hard of hearing children.”

Huawei Australia has entered a six-month partnership with local charity organisation, Deaf Australia, to encourage support and donation for those affected. Through this partnership, Huawei will offer the StorySign app to the Australian Deaf Commuinty and aim to raise awareness of deaf literacy more broadly. 

“Deaf children don’t learn to read in the same way as hearing children. Many struggle to learn how to read because they can’t match words with sounds. The deaf communityis in need of accessible content to address children’s literacy development needs and digital tools like StorySign is addressing this neccesity. For this reason, we are priviledged to be working with Huawei on the StorySign project and how, through the use of AI and innovative technology, it could enrich the lives of Australian deaf children and their families in a meaningful ways.’ comments Kyle Miers, Chief Executive of Deaf Australia. 

“We are very hopeful that it will make a significant impact in the deaf community, helping more deaf children learn how to read at the same level as hearing children. We also hope the launch of StorySign will support a wider conversation about ensuring equality in every aspect of their lives for deaf people.” says Mark Wheatley, Executive Director of European Union of Deaf. 

Sign has no written form as there is no direct English word-for-word translation, which poses a huge challenge to deaf children when learning to read. Huawei’s StorySign app, in conjunction with smartphone and physical book, delivers a magical story time experience for both parent and child. 

Created with experts and charities from the deaf community across Europe and Australia, StorySign uses Huawei AI powerful Image Recognition and Optical Character Recognition (OCR) to provide greater accuracy even when the child or parent positions the phone at an angle from the book. The AI further optimises the speed at which pages from othe book loads in the app meaning that children won’t be left waiting too long to find out what happens next in the story. 

StorySign launches in Australia with a film by Academy Award winner director Chris Overton and starring seven year-old actress Maisie Sly, both of whom worked on Oscar- winning short film The Silent Child. The StorySign film sees a young girl struggling to read with her father on Christmas Eve. Later that night, when she sneaks downstairs to peek at her present, she is stunned to see Santa who hands her a book for a gift. Upon realising that the little girl is deaf, Santa begin to sign the book and in that moment, she is the happiest little girl in the world, as he helps her enjoy the magic of story time. 

Partners involved in the app development include Deaf Australia, European Union of the Deaf and its local charities across Western Europe, publishing partner Penguin and the acclaimed animation specialists of Wallace & Grommit fame, Aardman. 

“When creating Star, the character for StorySign, we first had to immerse outselves in the world of sign lamguage,’ comments Neil Pymer, Interactive Creative Director, Aardman. “The complexity we found is overwhelming, so we needed to make sure that we created a character that not only resonated with the audience but also fulfilled it main job of teaching children to read. For example, we learned that facial expression play a critical role in sign language, so we created a character to embody that expressivity. At the same time, Star was designed to seem like an older sibling, somebody who will guide you through the book. Seeing the reactions of children when realising that Star signs the words in the book is something very special indeed.”

StorySign can be downloaded for free from Google Play and the Huawei AppGallery in 10 markets across Western Europe. It will be made available in Australia from February 2019 with compatibility with Auslan.

To watch film and learn how you can help, visit www.storysign.com. Donations can be made through via StorySign campaign hub on the Huawei website. All monies raised will support deaf children literacy projects across Europe and in Australia. including more books for StorySigm. 

-ENDS-

Media Release – Hearing Health Priority not Supported – 17 Aug 2018
The Australian Government has responded to and do not support a recommendation from the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport’s Report in making Hearing Health as National Health Priority. However, the Australian Government recognised there are number of issues of national importance.
3.9 million of Australians have some form of deafness in varying degrees. This large number is a significant concern where there are insufficient infrastructure and transparency of providers comes into the equation costing hundreds of millions, if not billions, of dollars over the last decade.
Deaf Australia acknowledge the needs for a more cohesive and mainstream system that calls for better accountability and fairness for everyone. However, Deaf Australia is extremely disappointed that the Committee’s view of Auslan (Sign Language) is consigned to interpreting support and not as a language or communication mode that will enhance a persons’ wellbeing whilst reinforcing deafness as medical model of disability.
The Committee’s lack of understanding of the social model is reflected in the language and recommendations.

• The focus on deafness as a hearing deficit rather than, as it for members of Deaf Australia, an essential part of linguistic and cultural identity;
• The Committee’s use of ‘Development Delay’ refers the development of speech and listening’ rather than overall development;
• The lack of reference to cognitive delay and social delay caused by lack of exposure to accessible language (e.g. signed language); and
• There is no recommendation for deaf people aged over 65, who cannot access NDIS and therefore have extremely limited access to sign language interpreting and therefore to participation in the broader community.

In addition, the Australian Government supports the Committee’s recommendation that listening and speech language therapy, and speech pathology be included in the Medicare Benefits.
Deaf Australia fails to understand why these services be included in the Medicare Benefits as they do not eliminate, reduce or minimise person’s hearing loss. Like Auslan, these services are communication tools and strategies that enables the individual to effectively communicate with others and does not necessarily improve the person’s hearing health or wellbeing, therefore, these services are not medical services. For this reason, Deaf Australia request the Australian Government to reverts its support.
Australian hearing system is already very much focused on supporting parents of deaf children to learn to speak and listen, yet where is the informed decision making for parents of deaf children, when even this Committee fails to recognised the social model of disability and the inherent benefits of sign language for deaf people?
“The United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, to which Australia is a signatory, gives deaf people the right to sign language, the right to participate in the community, the right to access information in our sign language – yet our Government, despite the implementation of the NDIS, is still stuck in a 1950s- era understanding of disability,” said Mr Kyle Miers, Chief Executive of Deaf Australia. “Australia’s commitment to ‘hearing health’ simply cannot be considered fair or equitable when deaf adults, and deaf children and their parents, are subject to a purely medical model of disability, which privileges hearing and speech over access to sign language.”
Deaf Australia is calling the Australian Government to ensure that all deaf adults, and all deaf children and their parents, have access to Auslan, have access to health information in Auslan, and are provided with objective and impartial information about deafness and the deaf community, based on social model of disability.
Reports:
Australian Government Response to the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport
Supplementary Information: Appendix 1

Deaf Australia calls on the Government to suspend the tender process for the delivery of the National Relay System citing inadequate consultation with user groups. Today is a final day for Request for Tender (RFT) for the delivery of the National Relay Service commencing in January 2019.

The Federal Government has submitted that the National Relay Service is merely a ‘safety-net’ for its users who have access to “new and emerging mainstream technologies”.  A submission which contradicts the NRS consumers’ view that National Relay Service is an ESSENTIAL service – as such, all services must be 24/7, including the Video Relay Service. Instead, the government wants deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing and people with speech impairment to use the National Relay Service as an ALTERNATIVE to unproven and untested ‘mainstream technology’.
‘Communication is an essential right for everyone; yet it seems that Government believes that deaf, deafblind, hard of hearing and people with speech impairment do not need to have the same rights as everyone else’– said Mr Kyle Miers, Chief Executive of Deaf Australia. ‘Deaf people who use sign language need the equivalency of full access to communication using the Video Relay Service which currently operates on limited hours. The present tender offers no assurances whatsoever that this will be the case.
At the recent Senate Estimate, the Department of Communication advised Senator Steele-John that a change of regulation to use ‘mainstream communication’ will be expected to be introduced in end of June to mid-July 2018.
‘During the one and only consultation, the Department advised that the mainstream communication will have no bearing on the National Relay Service, yet it plays a significant part in the provisioning of the National Relay Service’, said Mr Miers. ‘To have this tender close BEFORE the approval of the regulation is like ‘putting the cart before the horse’ and leaves no choice for Parliamentarians but to approve it.’
‘12,000 signatures collected on a petition on Change.org clearly shows that the Government and the Department of Communications has failed to listen, consult and accommodate our needs’ said Mr Miers.
Deaf Australia and NRS users are very concerned that the Government and the Department of Communication are risking lives with no assurance of equivalency of full access and the use of unproven and untested mainstream communication as preferred methods.
For these reasons, Deaf Australia calls on the Government and the Department to suspend the tender process until the Government and the Department properly consult with NRS users and peak organisations to create an NRS Service level obligations that satisfies everyone.

Media Release – 31 May 2018

Today (24 April, 2018), the National Relay Service (NRS) users called their MP to express their service concerns in the Australian Government’s Request for Tender (RFT) for the next National Relay Service contract, a service that will see NRS slip from the world best to potentially the world world’s worst relay service.
Last week on the ABC’s Q and A, Minister for Communication and the Arts, Mitch Fifield, declared that “a range of options … many of those free or at no cost” will be a viable means for National Relay Service users. This dynamic shift means that the government expects that those options should be considered an important alternative to the National Relay Service as a cost saving strategy.
The NRS Coalition demands the Australia government provide evidence that those free or cheap options are tested and proven technologies before introducing to the NRS. To date, this evidence has not been provided to the NRS Coalition.
WhatsApp, Messenger, online chat and other various mainstream communication applications are all non real-time communication technologies and cannot duplicate nor replicate telecommunication equivalency that NRS users require – that is, real-time service.
“With a reduction from the current cost of delivering the service from $32M to a cap of $22m per annum and increase reliance on mainstream communications provides no guarantee of a 24/7 service that NRS users require”, says Kyle Miers, spokesperson for the NRS Coalition. “Evidence to support alternative means is lacking and is in no way an assurance for NRS users to trust this tendering process.”
NRS Coalition calls for the Government to provide evidence that mainstream communications will replicate the National Relay Service in its ‘real-time’ functionalities. If it does not, then the Government is discriminating NRS users from the equivalency on a 24/7 basis.
NRS Coalition has established a petition on Change.org that calls the government to cease the tendering process to ensure that our assurances are met. The petition is on track to obtain 2,000 supporters.
For further information about NRS Coalition’s position, please visit www.nrs247.org.au.
[minimal_icon style=”download” url=”https://deafaustralia.org.au/wp-content/uploads/Media-Release-24-April-2018.pdf” target=”_self” lightbox_content=”” lightbox_description=””][/minimal_icon]Media Release 24 April 2018

Minister for Communications and the Arts, in response to an Australian Sign Language video question on the ABC’s Q and A program last night, pledged that Australians who are deaf, deafblind, hearing and/or speech impaired will have the service they need when the Government implements the next National Relay Service (NRS) contract.

The question, submitted by Deaf Australia CEO Kyle Miers, on behalf of coalition of NRS user organisations, asked Minister Fifield how the government would be able to assure the NRS community that no services would be cut back given that the current cost of providing the NRS is in excess of $32 million per annum and the recently released NRS request for tender has capped the service funding at $22 million per annum for the next 3 years. Questioning how a 30% reduction in funding can ensure that the services will continue on a 24/7 basis.
While Minister Fifield stated that there are new and merging mainstream technologies that many NRS users may be able to access instead of relying on the NRS, Mr Miers has today said, “People with disability are already using mainstream technologies as a first choice”, adding “the high usage of NRS services indicates that there are no adequate mainstream services suitable for many NRS users’. The NRS service with the highest take-up is captioned telephony where a hard-of-hearing person speaks their part of the conversation and reads the text of the other person’s response in addition to using their residual hearing. Mr Miers pointed out that there is no mainstream equivalent service for these NRS users and that few alternative technologies provide the real-time equivalence of a phone call.
Mr Miers also said that Minister Fifield incorrectly stated that the NRS has always been funded at $22 million per annum. “The $22 million funding cap was introduced in the current contract. Previously, the NRS was funded on a cost-recovery basis funded by the NRS levy impost on Telecommunications providers” said Mr Miers, noting that the Government has covered the funding shortfall in part from a drastic reduction in the NRS outreach service. Mr Miers asserts that “The NRS, as an essential communications bridge for many Australians with disability, needs to be provided on a cost-recovery basis and not capped at some arbitrary amount”.
In a follow-up question on the Q and A program Mr Miers asked Minister Fifield if he would pledge on National television that NRS users would not be worse -off as a result of the current tender process. The Minister answered in the affirmative, pledging that NRS users would have the service they need.
Mr Miers and the NRS community will be pressing the Government to ensure that it delivers on the Ministers pledge.