Individuals who have been completely deaf since birth primarily communicate using sign language. They find reading and writing difficult – it is a foreign language for them.

With “SILAS (Sign Language as a Service)”, SWISS TXT has already developed a tool for companies, which enables individuals to communicate using sign language.

The EASIER innovation project is a further development of SILAS. The idea is for fully automated “avatars” to take over the role of human sign language interpreters.

• The aim of this project is to develop a fully automated, smart tool to enable deaf individuals to communicate and interact using sign language.

• The tool creates an accessible connection between companies/organisations and deaf individuals, for example when they access a company’s website.

• The tool’s workflow translates a video enquiry, for example, from sign language into text, so that the text response from hearing individuals can then in turn be automatically translated into sign language and conveyed by an avatar.

• The research analyses the emotions and gender-specific aspects of 7 sign languages and 6 spoken languages and takes them into account in language technology.

Technical setup

In this video, we interviewed Project Manager Dr Giacomo Inches on the technical setup.

Easier is an EU-funded project as part of the H2020 programme and Grant Agreement No 101016982. Easier concerns a fully-automated translation and communication tool that enables accessible communication and interaction in sign language between deaf and hearing individuals. Term of the project: 2021 to 2023.