How can technology help break the barriers that deaf students in Kenya face in accessing education because of a critical shortage of sign language teachers?
Norah Kimathi is proving that humanoid robots are part of the answer.
Ms Kimathi co-founded Zerobionic in 2021 and the start-up develops assistive humanoid robots that translate spoken language into sign language, helping bridge communication gaps for deaf learners in classrooms and other settings.
The journey began with a simple robotic hand and an augmented reality glove, built from recycled plastic in a university workshop to translate English into Kenyan Sign Language.
"Seeing children who couldn't hear, I knew something had to be done to help teachers who were relying on phones to show images of what we were trying to explain."
The prototype was designed to help teachers explain concepts through sign language. Today, that innovation has evolved into a full humanoid robot capable of conveying hand signs, facial expressions and non-verbal cues needed for accurate sign language communication.
Powered by AI, machine learning and computer vision, the robots translate spoken classroom instructions into sign language in real time.
“Think of it like a Zoom-like platform where you, as the trainer or teacher, as you’re speaking, whatever you’re speaking is being directly translated into sign language by this robot that is about 5’7″ tall,” she says.
The idea was born after Ms Kimathi met deaf students during a science and technology mentorship. “Seeing children who couldn’t hear, I knew something had to be done to help teachers who were relying on phones to show images of what we were trying to explain,” she says.
Zerobionic is backed by the UNDP. The company makes the robots’ external cases from recycled plastics in Kisumu and gets its technology components from the US technology giant Nvidia.
It has so far expanded into seven countries across Africa, Europe and Australia, deploying more than 78 robotic systems in schools and reaching more than 500,000 deaf students across Africa.
Ms Kimathi is also championing the development of an open-source African sign language dataset that could help innovators build more inclusive technologies.
–Dennis Musau