We build AI-powered assistive technology for the DeafBlind community — enabling true two-way conversation through Speech2Braille and Braille2Speech, running entirely offline on affordable hardware.
DeafBlind individuals face profound isolation — unable to hear or see, yet possessing the full capacity for thought, feeling, and connection. AI4DeafBlind exists to dismantle that barrier using affordable, offline-capable AI that works in the real world — not just in a lab.
Anyone can speak to a DeafBlind person — and any DeafBlind person can speak back.
A sighted person speaks Indonesian. In under one second, the words appear as Braille on the DeafBlind person's display — no internet, no cloud, no intermediary.
Spoken Indonesian via microphone
Fine-tuned ASR, <20% WER, <1s RTF
Indonesian Braille translation
BRLTTY → any Braille display
A DeafBlind person types on their Perkins Keyboard. Their words are instantly spoken aloud — giving them a real voice in any conversation, without any special training required of listeners.
Braille typed on 6-key Perkins input
Braille decoded to Indonesian text
Neural text-to-speech on-device
Natural voice heard by the room
Our first field deployment is with Helen Keller Indonesia at their school in Yogyakarta — putting our bidirectional smart speaker directly into the hands of the DeafBlind community.
Caregivers, teachers, and family members speak naturally in Indonesian — DeafBlind students read the words on their Braille display in real time. And when the DeafBlind student responds via their Perkins Keyboard, their words are spoken aloud for everyone to hear. A true conversation, at last.
Field Partner
Helen Keller Indonesia — YogyakartaHardware assembly and software packaging on Raspberry Pi 5
Coordination with Helen Keller Indonesia's teaching staff and caregivers
Live deployment at the school — real users, real conversations, real impact
Collect feedback, measure usability, refine the system for broader rollout
Publishing code, Indonesian Braille table, and fine-tuned model weights
Technical Journal · Whisper Fine-tuning · GigaSpeech2 · Mozilla Common Voice ID v7.0
Technical Journal · Piper TTS · Perkins Input · Indonesian Braille · Edge Inference
Open Source Publication · Braille Table · Liblouis · BRLTTY · Bidirectional Translation
Disability Studies · Social Impact · Field Research · Helen Keller Indonesia
Disability Publication · Affordability · Emerging Markets · Global South
Researchers, clinicians, disability advocates, and institutions — we welcome collaboration, feedback, and partnership to bring Speech2Braille and Braille2Speech to more communities around the world.
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