Arsh Shah Dilbagi, a teenager has invented a device which enables people with speech disabilities to communicate and with this he has entered the finals of Google Science Fair. He is amongst the top 15 Global Finalist and the only one from Asia. This device which is called 'TALK' picks up signals from a person's breath through Morse code and converts them into speech.
This device which costs only eighty dollars is small, robust and is claimed to be as fast as the AAC's used by Stephen Hawking, which costs an astounding seven thousand dollars.
Dilbagi rightly states that fast AAC's which are now available in the market cannot be afforded by the general public and that claims that his device offers the answer. Talking about his device, Dilbagi explains that 'TALK' expects the user to give out to two distinguishable exhales with varying intensities which are then converted by microphones into electrical signals. These electrical signals are sent to a micro processor, the Morse engine, which converts the long exhales into dashes and short exhales into dots. This Morse code is then demodulated into words and is sent to processor that synthesizes the voice. There are 9 voices available in 'TALK' enabled according to gender and age.
The Child prodigy from Panipat has entered into Google Science fair as Asia's only finalist and has already made ripples in the AAC industry by increasing the speech rates, accuracy and affordability through his device 'TALK'
He states, "In future, I would like to add auto-predictions to my computing engine and integrate TALK with modern technology like Google Glass to make it easier for people with development disabilities."
Dilbagi's father, Amit, said that since childhood his son had dreamt of doing something meaningful for mankind.
Final Results would be announced on September 23, 2014
