KUALA LUMPUR: Eddy, a sign language edutainment app created by UIA students Mohd Zuhairi Zulkiflee and Imran Abu Bakar, was selected winner of the Digi Challenge for Change 7 (DigiCFC7).
Zuhairi and Imran walked away with a cool RM50,000 after judges crowned their app champ over to other two finalists – Good People Today, a crowd-funded app for people in need of medical treatment; and Food Ninja Innovation, an app created to help reduce food wastage. Both runners-up bagged RM10,000 each.
Eddy won the day for its ability to teach hearing-impaired and mute children sign language.
The app is based on a game concept which makes the learning process interesting and fun.
"(It features) a 3D dictionary to make learning the alphabet easy, and children with hearing problems can learn their ABCs, and verbs and nouns," said ideator Zuhairi.
The app is also targeted at family members and friends of the hearing-impaired or mute who want to learn to communicate with them.
Digi's chief digital officer, Praveen Rajan, said this year's DigiCFC is dedicated to crowdsourcing creative ideas and transforming them into solutions for the betterment of society.
"This year's DigiCFC is designed to provide a platform for ideators and developers to collaborate and create mobile solutions that will help address common social issues and impact the lives of the targeted communities," he said.
A total of 250 ideas were submitted by the public for the DigiCFC7 and three made it to the finals.
DigiCFC is supported by Agensi Inovasi Malaysia, FB Start, Google Malaysia, MaGIC, MDeC, Microsoft Malaysia and Unicef.