Software Developed for Communication with the Hearing Impaired

Musa Zeytun, a mechatronics engineer from Adana who overcame material hardship to realize his childhood dream, developed software to facilitate communication with his hearing-impaired friend. Hearing loss posed significant communication challenges when Zeytun interacted with his hearing-impaired friend Gizem Eke, prompting him to develop communication software for the deaf. Through the program he named Dostext, when someone says "hello," that speech is conveyed to the hearing-impaired person in sign language, while what the hearing-impaired person communicates in sign language is transmitted to the other party as text.

Seeking support to develop the project

Zeytun is now seeking backing to further develop his project. Emphasizing his achievement through diligence and effort, Musa Zeytun continued: "I was meant to become a mechatronics engineer. I had dreams. I worked in my father's scrap yard and collected paper on the streets. I never regretted working or my past. Then I was admitted to study mechatronics engineering. While studying there, I built 3D printers and UAVs. I worked constantly." He noted that approximately 450 million people worldwide are hearing-impaired and that his 'Dostext' project aims to bring them hope. "The application we developed is geared toward this. The Dostext project consists of three phases: 1.0, 2.0, and 3.0. In phase 1.0, hearing-impaired individuals convert texts and sounds through the application into sign language. In 2.0, when that deaf person says I'm fine, how are you, you receive text or voice on your phone. In 3.0, there is the metaverse," he explained.

A childhood dream

Describing how he had dreams and that this project stemmed from a childhood aspiration, Zeytun continued: "I am realizing the dreams of that young Musa Zeytun. Because he wanted to do things beneficial to humanity. He wanted people to live in fairer and equal conditions. When he was making childish projects, no one listened to him. Now, as an engineer, I am realizing his dreams."

We are seeking support

Explaining that the 'Dostext' project currently provides hearing-impaired individuals with augmented reality training in tree planting, Zeytun concluded with these words: "These are currently closed systems. Hearing-impaired individuals can access the animations we previously created through QR codes. We continue our work with this system and are building a pool for our 1.0 project. We are currently between phases 0 and 1. Some of the world's best mocap technology companies became sponsors and enabled us to animate our project. In Turkey, some people need to take hold of one end of this project." Esra Özden, President of the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem Association (GED) supporting Göncü Musa Zeytun's projects, stated: "The project is now at the investment stage. More investors are needed to further develop the project."