Page 185 - AI for Good-Innovate for Impact Final Report 2024
P. 185
AI for Good-Innovate for Impact
Impact In Zimbabwe’s Primary Healthcare (Applicable to 28 Other African National Sign
Language Use Cases)
Dominic’s leadership had led to development and delivery of disability inclusive communication
and access to information on drugs & medicines for hard of hearing/deaf clients which is critical 42 - PSG
to ensuring access to quality health care services and essential medicines for all. His work
has and will continue to lead to improved human resource performance in the health sector
(seamless communication with the deaf client/ service provider), improved access to information
on essential medicines & commodities in Zimbabwean and Other African Sign Languages,
improved access to (Primary, Secondary, Tertiary) quaternary & quinary health care services,
Improved inclusive Public Health Surveillance for the deaf population, Disaster Preparedness
& Response in Sign Languages, Reduced Morbidity & Mortality due miscommunication with
reference to CD’s & NCDs, Increased access to information on water sanitation and healthy
environment for the deaf as well as improved RMNCAH & N for deaf clients which are the key
sign language inclusive health sector outcome areas to be supported by the technologies
being championed by Dominic as executive director of Purple Signs Global. If the deaf do not
learn the standard health care Sign Language variety for the country and if non-deaf (hearing)
members of the medical community have no knowledge of Sign Language, then the deaf will
not enjoy any of the rights they are entitled to.
As highlighted in a United Nations ITU report, there are at least 1.5million deaf /hard of
hearing Zimbabweans who are and will benefit from the technologies Purple Signs Global
has developed. At least 10000 front office workers in health and finance will benefit from
seamless communications with deaf clients which will have a positive impact on the bottom
line of businesses as more deaf clients take up their services while enjoying a previously fragile
customer experience.
UN Goals:
• SDG 3: Good Health and Well-being
• SDG 4: Quality Education
• SDG 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth
• SDG 17: Partnerships to achieve the Goal
Justification UN Goals selection: The tool is used in health to allow the deaf to communicate
with health care providers and for healthcare providers to communicate with the deaf. This also
allows quality education and decent work for the deaf in public health , primary healthcare etc .
Partner: harare institute of public health Partner.
42�2�2 Future work
Data collection, Model development, Create new variations/extensions to the same use
case, Standards development related to the use case, Setup reference tools, notebooks and
simulation environment.
Elaborate proposal: Extension of AI based African National Sign Translation tool to Health,
Banking, Finance, Insurance and Investment industries in Africa. Also expanding beyond
national sign languages to regional sign language dialects within each nation’s borders for
seamless translations. Sign languages have regional and community dialects which must be
integrated for best use in Public Healthcare.
169