Qatari entrepreneur and inventor Mohammed Hassan Al Jefairi
Doha: A path-breaking project from Qatar has won the prestigious World Summit Award for this year. Deaf Pedia, created by Qatari entrepreneur and inventor Mohammed Hassan Al Jefairi, won the award in the Inclusion & Empowerment category.
Deaf Pedia was selected by the final jury from more than 400 nominations from over 100 UN member states.
“I feel very proud of putting Qatar flag among the World Summit Awards (WSA). This shows our unity and passion towards success in spite of the current illegal blockade,” Al Jefairi told The Peninsula after winning the award.
Deaf Pedia is a platform that supports deaf by offering sign language open source platform to share and improve sign language.
“This award is unique because it’s based on nominations and this shows that the community believes in it,” Al Jefairi said with pride.
Deaf Pedia tries to make communication between deaf people and non-deaf people easier. Deaf Pedia started the first and only open source database to share and add new signs by sign language experts and users around the world. It can also be used like a translate tool from text or audio to sign language.
The award will be presented in a function to be held in march 2019 in Portugal.
Al Jefairi, a Star of Science finalist, founded Abilitx, an umbrella network for the disabled community Abilitx is already developing some of the latest groundbreaking learning solutions for disabled people, including Robot Seedo and Deafpedia – the ultimate sign language database.
He is also the author of over 68 books on leadership and technology which are now available to download for free in multiple languages.
The WSA selects and promotes local digital innovation with high impact on improving society. WSA is an international platform for cutting edge examples on how ICTs can have an impact on society.
Running 15 years by now, WSA has become a quality seal for digital content with societal impact in over 180 participating countries.
WSA keeps a close strategic association with the United Nation agendas. By reporting back national digital developments to the UN WSIS process it is supporting the UN Post-2015 Sustainable Development Agenda.
