Sign Bridge

SignBridge is a two-way communication bridge between sign-language users and the non-signing people around them, built for moments where reading or typing on a phone isn't an option - for Deaf users who are also blind or low-vision, for children, and for elderly signers. Using only a webcam, SignBridge recognizes a short signed phrase, rewrites it into a natural spoken sentence, plays it out loud in the listener's language, and renders a clear pictogram card so the request can be heard and seen at the same time. In the reverse direction, the hearing person's text reply is simplified into accessible language and broken into a short signer-facing storyboard of visual beats. The whole loop is powered by a chain of OpenAI products - Responses API with vision for sign recognition, text models for translation and simplification, the Audio Speech API for voice, and Image Generation for the communication card — wired together in a Next.js app. This hackathon build ships as a web demo for portability and quick iteration, but the experience is designed for a native mobile app, where always-on camera access, one-tap launch from a lock screen, offline-friendly phrase packs, and on-device haptics would make it genuinely usable in the street, the train station, or the store aisle.