Hearing impaired can enjoy heritage tours with new app

New Delhi: Aiming to make a difference in the lives of the hearing-impaired people through technology, a group of Delhi University students have created a mobile application that helps the deaf across the country to enjoy heritage tours.

Deaf Com, a company run by four students that is housed in the incubation centre of the varsity’s Cluster Innovation Centre (CIC), created the app “Sign my Tour.” The user-friendly app provides all the required information to people who cannot hear a tour guide and even have difficulty reading the text.

According to one of the founders, Manish Narayan, there are over 18 million hearing-impaired people in the country and as of now, they only have 250 certified interpreters.

“We are planning to have more interpreters with us in the coming years. We launched this app to make the deaf and mute people across India comfortable while accessing famous monuments through their smartphones,” said Mr Narayan, a historical tourism student from CIC.

Currently, the app has listed three heritage sites including Red Fort, Qutub Minar, and Humayun’s Tomb with options for both short and long hours.

While the short tour option is 12-15 minutes long and includes a brief about the monument and its history, the long tour is over 30 minutes long and provides more details about the place and its history.

The CIC team, along with an interpreter from the National Association of Deaf (NAD), had taken a group of deaf people to Humayun’s Tomb for an initial reaction, before launching the app.