Kenya’s Elly Savatia Wins Africa’s Top Engineering Prize for Real-Time Sign Language Translation App 

Kenyan engineer Elly Savatia has been named the 2025 winner of the Royal Academy of Engineering’s Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation. He earned £50,000 for his groundbreaking artificial intelligence app, Terp 360, which translates speech into sign language in real time.

Savatia’s invention, often described as “Google Translate for sign language,” uses 3D avatars to instantly convert spoken or written words into sign language, enabling seamless interaction between hearing and non-hearing individuals without human interpreters.

Developed alongside Kenya’s deaf and hard-of-hearing community, the web-based tool has catalogued over 2,300 sign gestures, covering frequently used words and phrases. It currently supports English and Swahili translations into Kenyan Sign Language, with plans to extend to other African and international sign languages by 2027.

Companies cannot afford interpreters, and they just don’t have the tools to integrate these people effectively,  Savatia said. We see ourselves as an enabler. We can do sign language, but at scale.

The award’s judging panel chair, Rebecca Enonchong, praised the innovation for its compassion and technical depth blend.

What stood out about Elly’s solution, and Elly himself, is the level of innovation. It was a demonstration that Africans can use cutting-edge technology to solve problems, not just on the continent but beyond, she stated.

Savatia’s team has established a motion capture studio in Nairobi that can record up to 1,000 signs daily to expand the app’s capabilities. They plan to collaborate with NGOs, media organisations, and sign language institutions to strengthen the AI’s learning base.

The three other finalists include Vivian Arinaitwe (Uganda) with tech innovation known as Neo Nest; Frank Owusu (Ghana) with Aquamet; and Carol Ofafa (Kenya) with E-Safiri. Each received £10,000.

Launched in 2014, the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation celebrates African-led technological solutions to the continent’s most urgent social and economic challenges. This year, it shines a light on a vision of connection, one that listens, even in silence.

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Chinalurumogu Eze

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