VIT Chennai Students Unveil Sign Language Smart Glasses at technoVIT'26

A smart glass that tracks the sign language of individuals with hearing and speech disabilities and converts it into audio across Indian languages was showcased at the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) Chennai campus during its annual technical festival.

The innovation was presented at technoVIT’26, a two-day international technical festival inaugurated on Thursday. This year’s edition of the event is centered on the theme of "Inclusive Innovations" and explores the application of technology to tackle societal challenges.

The festival has drawn more than 15,000 participants representing 14 countries. The schedule features 140 events covering fields including artificial intelligence, robotics, fintech, gaming, Internet of Things (IoT), healthcare, and green technology.

Among the projects on display was the Smart Perception and Assistive Reality Companion, known as SPARC. The assistive device was developed by a team of five third-year and fourth-year Computer Science Engineering (CSE) students who worked on building the working model over a period of two months.

Explaining the device's functionality, Vedant N, a third-year CSE student on the project team, explained that a camera fitted into a wearable glass captures hand movements. A detection mechanism then locates fingers and joints, converting the loaded gestures directly into text or speech.