Inspiration
We were inspired by the U.N. 17 sustainable development goals, particularly goal 4, which focuses on quality eduation, specifically to "ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all." We know that one difficulty limiting students is language barriers. Therefore, we built Ed4All to help students overcome these language barriers.
What it does
At the current moment, Ed4All helps students overcome language barriers by translating text. Ed4All can translate text to and from five different languages:
- English
- Spanish
- German
- Mandarin
- Finnish
How we built it
We built the frontend using HTMLand CSS. We built the backend using Python and Flask. We used Opus-MT models offered by the Language Technology Research Group at the University of Helsinki to help build our translator.
Challenges we ran into
- Timezones: We were 9 hours apart from each other (CDT and GST)
- Figuring out how to build a website: Neither of us had done so before.
- Using ML: It was daunting to try to incorporate machine learning into our project.
Accomplishments that we're proud of
- Building Ed4All.
- Figuring out how to use ML for translation purposes.
What we learned
- We learned how to use ML models from transformers to help with translation.
- We figured out how to use Flask to build a web application.
What's next for Ed4All
- More features: While we planned to include more in Ed4all, in the time provided, we only were able to get the translator working. We hope to add more features (i.e. text summarization, note-taking, etc.) so that it has a greater benefit for students.
- Improve efficiency: It currently takes a while to translate text. We hope to reduce the time it takes to translate from one language to another.
Log in or sign up for Devpost to join the conversation.