Rheine. Together with more than 40 other municipalities and Charamel GmbH from Cologne, the city of Rheine is currently working on a so-called sign language avatar, i.e. an artificial person or graphic figure that translates website content into sign language. Individual contents of the municipal website www.Rheine.de are thus to be available in sign language in the future. Thus the city Rheine participates in the development of a solution for a barrier-free organization of Internet sides and/or on-line services for deaf citizens.
According to the German Association of the Deaf (DGB), 70 percent of deaf people in Germany rely on sign language interpreters. The German text language is like a foreign language for them. In addition, true digital participation is hardly possible under current conditions. With this new development, content on municipal websites is to be automatically translatable for the first time with the help of a sign language avatar. The Cologne-based software company Charamel GmbH has launched the nationwide participation project “Kommunaler Gebärdensprach-Avatar” (KGA) for this purpose.
“Our participation in the innovative pilot project is in cooperation with the Kommunale ADV-Anwendergemeinschaft West [Communal ADV User Community West] [KAAW for short, editor’s note],” explains Mayor Dr. Peter Lüttmann. The KAAW supports a large number of municipalities in the northwestern Münsterland region in the context of digitization. As a result, it offered its members the opportunity to join the nationwide KGA participation project. “It makes absolute sense for municipalities to join forces in this task. It saves resources and pools knowledge. After all, all municipalities need similar content for their sites. This is where we benefit from the ‘one for all’ principle,” says Lüttmann.
At the kick-off meeting at the end of October to launch the two-year KGA participation project, more than 40 municipalities – cities, counties, communities and districts – were represented. The project’s central approach: to develop a dynamic sign language avatar that uses AI (artificial intelligence) to output any text in sign language. The data collected in building and expanding the kit is learning the AI for this goal.
“As a public agency, we need to supplement our web presences with information in German Sign Language (DGS). By means of sign language translations, we promote comprehensive digital participation for deaf users. I am pleased that we are taking another important step towards accessibility with the sign language avatar,” says Rheine’s Social Affairs Director Raimund Gausmann.
The participation project builds on research findings from the AVASAG (Avatar-based Speech Assistant for Automated Sign Language Translation) joint project funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Municipalities are to benefit from the current findings and the latest state of knowledge.
The project goes through different project phases. “In the first step, the content provided by the municipalities will be bundled into municipal services. Together with the participating municipalities, a centralized translation option will be developed from which the municipal administration will benefit,” reports Michaela Hövelmann from the city of Rheine, who is responsible for the project. “The result should be a construction kit with which municipalities can automate and translate information for the deaf individually for their digital platforms. But there is still a long way to go until then. We hope to translate the first citizen services for deaf people over the next year with the help of the avatar.”