Resonate Learning

The world is home to 34 million deaf children and India has 2 million+ deaf children under age 15, with an almost 99% dropout rate!

Core Problem:
- Most deaf & hard of hearing (DHH) children in India drop out only before high school as they are unable to understand what’s being taught, due to a lack of accessible learning material.
- The educators face challenges to create such materials and providing interventions to help each child individually due to lack of tools.

Reasons:
a] The learning resources are not visual, engaging, has complex content while reading & language remains a challenge in the early years due to lack of language acquisition.
b] The available digital learning solutions are Audio-visuals based and not accessible for the deaf and hard of hearing. Thus, such platforms fail to provide a holistic teaching-learning environment for deaf children.
c] The concepts being taught in the schools are not reinforced at home as the parents struggle to learn the special teaching techniques used in schools, affecting the child’s learnability.

We are building “Resonate Learning”, world’s first deaf-friendly teaching-learning platform that enables children with hearing loss to learn, practice & revise concepts 4-6 times faster using a game-based learning approach. It helps them to access education in a visual & engaging way and retain the learning for a longer period.

Resonate for special educators & in-home revision:
a] The same platform reduces the teachers’ efforts in learning content & assessment creation by aiding the special teachers to be used as a visual teaching & assessment tool so that they can focus on understanding the conceptual needs of individuals while easing the practice process at home, ensuring a better home reinforcement and enabling educators with quick and better planning of their IEP.
b] The Smart content organizer recommends relevant assessments & learning paths according to the child’s performance.
c] Teachers and parents can monitor the child’s progress in real-time, in their own language.

Our target population consists of Deaf and Hard of hearing children under age 15, their special educators and their parents. To understand how they are currently underserved, we need to understand how is learning affected by deafness.

A child learns about his surroundings and his cognitive abilities develop through the sounds he listens to. Hearing is responsible for language
development, which in turn is responsible for cognitive development. 

Imagine you are reading this ->APPLE. You got a sound pronouncing an apple in your mind and you got an image of an apple in your mind.
This is what is cognition. Now a child who has never heard a sound since birth, APPLE would be symbol just like how is 苹果 for Non-Chinese population (this is apple in Chinese)
So the underlying problem is the language acquisition for deaf children which leads to challenges in learning as they grow up. 

In India, still, Indian Sign Language is not used in most special schools. Later those who drop out, they struggle to become financially independent and contribute efficiently to the economy. 

While interacting with a researcher in this space, she mentioned that Deaf people don't see themselves as disabled but they see themselves as a linguistic Minority. If they get accessible learning, the sky is the limit for them and nothing can stop them. 

This is how we aim to bring an impact at Learn and Empower:

1. By providing Accessible Learning (Indian Sign Language + Interactive Visuals) and helping in language acquisition for deaf children 

2. Empower educators with tools to make their lives easier and provide real-time insights on learning through Artificial Intelligence 

3. Helping parents and families with community support groups and involvement in learning

More than 90% of deaf children are born to hearing parents and in the education they are not aware about what strategies to be used. They rely on the special educators and the methods that they use in the school. On the other hand, in the schools special educators spend a lot of time in creating deaf-friendly teaching materials and understand each students level of understanding to provide personalised learning.

For about three years, we have been working closely in the ecosystem, interacting with children, organisations, non-governmental organisations (NGOs), special educators, parents, and subject matter experts who are working in this space to understand the various challenges in the education of deaf and hard of hearing students. We conducted a number of experiments to put our hypothesis about children's learning patterns to the test. To improve the inputs, we solicited feedback from more than 20 educators who employ both oral aural and sign strategies in the classroom. Interview about 30 parents to learn more about how children learn at home. We created a prototype and tested it with 100 deaf children from various states and backgrounds, as well as feedbacks from teachers and experts. At each stage, we receive feedback from deaf educators who have overcome obstacles and are now implementing strategies in the classroom.

We are excited to be a part of a peer group doing similar work to exchange learnings and support through Solve. Furthermore, we are looking to expand our institutional partners in Education and Technology, both domestic and international (outside of India), in order to improve our product and explore opportunities, as our solution has the potential to scale globally.
Through Solve, we also hope to gain access to connections that will allow us to gain access to technical, strategic, and financial resources. We are also looking for mentoring and assistance with the impact assessment of our solution through network access.

A community with 34 million+ deaf & hard of hearing kids globally & 2 million+ in India is still unable to use current digital learning solutions for the kids at home as well as for the special  educators to teach efficiently. Solutions that not only are accessible but are engaging, interactive is a need of this century. Resonate is one such solution that we have created that brings the deaf kids, special educators & the parents closer in the entire learning ecosystem. Thus ensuring holistic learning & development using a mixed approach of traditional & non-traditional ways of teaching.

For the deaf kids & their parents: Cognitive development is crucial in the early age but their inability to hear, awareness factor among the parents worsens the situation as they grow. 

1] In countries like India, Indian Sign Language is still not preferred in majority of special schools, on the other hand, the language of learning changes at each state so there's no uniformity. 

2] Home reinforcement/ revision of the concepts being taught at schools is not possible as the parents struggle to understand the special teaching techniques used in schools.

How "Resonate Learning" improves the learning of these kids & helps the parents?

- Where other platforms follow class wise syllabus approach we follow uniform approach so that if a child who is in class 4 but his foundational concepts of class 1 are not clear, he get to do that first and then guiding him to consistently progress to his current class. The games are structured in such a way that the deaf kids can learn while they play. 

- We also differentiate ourself because of our hybrid tutorials approach i.e. games & Indian Sign Language based tutorials within the app only. This makes it the only app currently available globally with a] hybrid tutorials model, b] in a language of their education,  c] Works offline 

This helps the deaf & hard of hearing kids to learn-practice & understand concepts with a single app and enables the parents to be involved in their child's learning without even having to sit for long hours of platform demo sessions as they are self-guided. 

For the special educators: 

- Creating deaf-friendly learning materials is a time consuming process & majority of the time is being consumed while creating the learning materials, assessments & then the evaluation.

- Special schools do not prefer e-learning solutions that are currently available as they fail to bridge the learning gap of the deaf kids.

How are we saving the time of special educators & enabling them to asses every individual with 1 click?

- With our adaptive layers within the learning games the teachers can assess the deaf children with just one click. They can see the performance and progress of the children in real-time and know the specific areas where the kids need more improvement & the areas where the teachers should focus more while teaching. Completely paperless! No need to create tutorials, assessments. The teachers can spend majority of their time in doubt clearing, support & teaching and not in unproductive works.

The best part is "all of these are possible with a single app only!" 

i] We aim to become India’s first deaf-friendly teaching-learning platform while creating a holistic
environment that brings deaf children, special educators, and parents together in the learning
ecosystem.
ii] By digitalizing the teaching-learning experience we aim to alleviate the dropout rate of children
with deafness almost by 30% in the first year.
iii] Parents and Teachers can focus on childs’ holistic improvement rather than worrying about
performance and practice. Thus increasing the teaching efficiency by 40-45%.
iv] Enabling the parents to know where the kid needs improvement at their comfort.
v] Reaching to Tier-3 schools as well as rural areas where digitalization is not present due to network
& connectivity issues and digitalizing 50+ special schools from such areas. Thus aiming to educate those 4-6 Lakh children with deafness in India who do not have the privilege to pursue education due

to financial, geographical, and economical constraints.

Number of children using our app on a daily basis
Time spent on the app by children
Number of assignments given by educators to children

1. Problem

• What is the problem you are solving and its root cause?

  • Learning outcome is below average for deaf kids

Subproblems: 

• Less understanding using traditional teaching techniques - For Deaf Students

• Not able to cover the syllabus and Repetitive revision is required - For Special Educators

• unable to involve in the learning process - Parents of Deaf Children

Minimum use of digital technology in education for deaf kids.

• What are the wider effects of the problem?

• Deaf Students lag behind the mainstream counterparts variably by 5-7 years.

• Student gets promoted to next class even if the basics are not clear, hence the understanding goes on decreasing

• Increase in dropout rate, every 6 out of 10 student drops-out before std 9/10.

• Parents of deaf students need to learn the special teaching techniques to involve in the Learning ecosystem which often is difficult and takes time.

1. Vision

To empower the 2.7 million+ deaf students, by enabling them to access education in a way they enjoy while involving their parents and teachers in the learning process to improve conceptual understanding.

• What is the ultimate change you want to see? 

To enable the deaf students to be engaged in continuous inclusive learning through digital 

medium, by making it more accessible so that they can learn at their own pace, 

whenever and wherever they want.

Parents to be able to involve in their learning effectively

• What will be the situation if the problem that you identified is now solved?

The deaf students can learn and master concepts with ease and in no time. Through digital            learning medium, they will be able to learn, get their doubts solved irrespective of 

their location and while at home.

1. Outcomes/Impact

1. Short term (1-2 years)

• What is first level of positive change that your beneficiary experiences in relation to your product/service/program?

i]  Improvement in willingness and engagement of deaf students to study.

ii] On-screen tutorials within the platform so if they can take help if stuck, even in the offline 

    mode and when the teacher or special educator are not available and while learning at             

    home.

iii] The complex mathematical concepts which take 3 to 4 days to master can be mastered within 40-45 minutes.

iv] The parents would know the child’s performance and the areas where s/he needs practice, while

     the teachers can use it as teaching aid at schools

• Are the outcomes in line with your impact and vision?

Yes, we’ve seen that our digital learning technique helps the deaf students to learn in more 

engaging way and it also act as one of the best platforms that keeps the children engaged 

during learning while not only clearing their conceptual doubt in no time.

1. Long term (3-5 years)

• What are the more permanent changes for the beneficiary?

i] The deaf students feel more confident, remember the concepts for longer duration. 

ii] Reduction in dropout rates and hence enabling them to continue their education further.

iii]Improved the readiness to learn with mainstream students.

• What broader changes in the system do you see as a result of your work 

and outcomes existing for a while?

        i] There will be no social stigma while learning and during academic continuation about their

            deafness.

       ii] More and better opportunities to work will be available in corporate or any environment.

      iii] More equality and less judgement.

      iv] Digital learning will not be restricted to mainstream students only but will be made available 

           for them as well, even more affordable.

1. Outputs

• What is the immediate result of your activities?

i] Awareness about the platform and digital learning technique will be created.

ii] Parents and Teachers can monitor the performance of deaf students in real time.

iii] Students will be encouraged to learn things while arousing curiosity and interest.

• How many beneficiaries will receive your product/service/program?

There are about 34 million deaf children across the globe and 2.7 million+ deaf students in India. 

While, we plan to onboard the 2.7 million+ deaf students across India. There are 780+ registered 

special schools across India who will also be benefited.

1. Activities 

• What are the steps required to develop your product/service/program?

i] Identifying the problems faced by the deaf students to continue their learning.

ii] Framing the potential solutions and choosing the best that solves the problem.

iii] Onboarding and collaborating with special educators, content strategists, curators, designers and developers.

iv]Here for us: Identifying the types of games, engaging designs that will engage the deaf children in their learning.

v] Structuring the developed games based upon curriculum and subjects.

vi] Developing the prototype and creating an MVP.

• What are the steps required to make your product/service/program available to the beneficiary?

i] Finding product-market fit by conducting beta trials with onboarded end-users, validating and then taking feedback, suggestions continuously, performing final iterations.

ii]Reaching out to influencers validating it from them and then with their help reaching out to potential users (Special schools, Organizations, Parents)

iii] Onboarding and partnering with schools, NGOs working in the education and social needs domain.

iv] Organizing webinars, online awareness campaigns while targeting the parents and special educators.

v] Forming community of parents and special educators.

vi] Deployment of the platform in schools through subsidized models where the special educators and teachers can use it as a teaching aid.

vii] Making the product available on website, play store.

1. Inputs 

• What are the resources required to develop the product or service? (Resources can be in terms of infrastructure, finance, intellectual, human etc.)

I] Human resources: Unity Game and application developers; Web developers; UI/ UX Designer, Data Analysts, Content strategists.

II] Finance: Monthly salary of the employees, one-time deployment cost, App and website maintenance cost, travel costs if any.

• What are the skills and expertise that are required?

A] Skills Required: Unity game development, C# programming; Full stack web development, UI/UX design, Adobe Illustrator and Adobe XD, Content research and planning.

• Who are the key stakeholders or partners involved?

A] Trustees of special schools or principal of special schools.

B] Special educators.

C] Parents of deaf students.

For the Learning App, we using Unity as our game engine and for Augmented Reality. At the backend we use Machine Learning to track the child performance and give insights to teachers.

We support diversity, equity and inclusivity in our work as members from all the groups are respected and supported. We have more than 50% women in our team and also have deaf within our team.

1] At B2C end: We've monthly, quarterly & yearly subscription plan for the parents of the deaf kids. The monthly price is: INR 499/ child, Quarterly is INR 1299 & yearly INR 4999 only. 

2] At B2B end: NGOs and Special schools are our customers with licensing plan which is as follows. 
a] If the organization is having < 75 kids: INR 499 per month/ child
b] Organization with 75 - 100 kids: INR 399 per month/ child
c] Organization with > 100 kids: INR 349 per month/ child

Currently we are sustained through grants and selling products to organisation. In the near future, we are looking to raise investment capital for product development and distribution. In the next 3 years, we aim to make it a self sustaining organization.

We have received around INR 5 Lakhs in grants from 3M, CII and Gujarat Governments SSIP, INR 1.4 Lakh in revenue and haven't raised any investment funding. Further, we have got approval of grant of INR 25 Lakh from IIT Hyderabad, India.