International Assisted Communication for Education

I-ACE's central focus is to support deaf students in education and citizenship. Effective communication is essential for quality of life and education and both should be equally available in an inclusive society. However, research has shown that access to education is severely compromised for the deaf and hearing impaired. Thus, I-ACE project aims to establish an innovative infrastructure that supports live assisted communication between the conventional classroom and the deaf student and between deaf and non-deaf people. Through this infrastructure it is hoped that better integration and better education will result. This is also a socially important issue, and its relevance is growing in significance each year. Research has shown that there are numerous different sign languages across the world (approximately 200) being 47 in Europe alone. They have different language origins with only limited similarity. A specific deliverable of the project is an automatic bi-directional translation system between sign language and written speech across 6 different languages (Portuguese, Slovenian, Greek, German, Cyprus, and UK sign languages).