UKZN Graduate Builds Sign Language AI After Watching His Parents Struggle at SASSA

A University of KwaZulu-Natal graduate has built an AI system that translates South African Sign Language into spoken English in real time, prompted by watching his parents struggle to communicate at a social grant office. Akhil Hansrajh, whose parents are both hard of hearing, told VOC News the project came from a gap in his own ability to help. “My dad taught my sister and I to sign when we were young, but I only really learned the alphabet, so I could never interpret a whole conversation,” he