Communication barriers are a daily challenge for the Deaf and Hard-of-Hearing community in Egypt. To address this, we developed a real-time Egyptian Sign Language (ESL) translator using AI and computer vision.

Unlike traditional gesture classifiers, our system processes continuous sequences of hand, body, and facial movements, producing fluent Arabic text and optional speech output. Key highlights:

• Real-Time Recognition: Uses MediaPipe Holistic for hands, face, and body landmarks

• Sequence Modeling: Two-layer Bidirectional LSTM captures gesture sequences

• Context-Aware Translation: Combines gestures into meaningful Arabic phrases

• Accessible UI: Instant predictions with optional Text-to-Speech

We built a custom ESL dataset of 400 signs, and the model achieves 97% test accuracy in real-time inference.

This project demonstrates how AI can break communication barriers and empower the Deaf community in Egypt.

📖 Read the full story and see screenshots here
Medium Article: Medium Towards AI: Towards AI

License:
© 2025 Ahmed Ashraf. "Real-Time Egyptian Sign Language Translator" content (articles, tutorials, screenshots, diagrams) is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

You may share this work, but must:
- Give credit to Ahmed Ashraf
- Not use commercially
- Not modify or create derivatives

Full license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Unlike traditional gesture classifiers, our system processes continuous sequences of hand, body, and facial movements, producing fluent Arabic text and optional speech output. Key highlights:

• Real-Time Recognition: Uses MediaPipe Holistic for hands, face, and body landmarks

• Sequence Modeling: Two-layer Bidirectional LSTM captures gesture sequences

• Context-Aware Translation: Combines gestures into meaningful Arabic phrases

• Accessible UI: Instant predictions with optional Text-to-Speech

We built a custom ESL dataset of 400 signs, and the model achieves 97% test accuracy in real-time inference.

This project demonstrates how AI can break communication barriers and empower the Deaf community in Egypt.

👉 Read the full article on Medium: [Medium Link]