Smartstones is the Singularity University Grand Challenge Winner in Learning #gsummit

Singularity University Grand Challenge in Learning End goal – Access to information and experiences that build knowledge and skills for all people at all stages of their lives for personal fulfillment and benefit to society

Winner of the Learning challenge is Smartstones

Smartstones makes the Prose application.

Smartstones is a “Democratizing Voice” for 370 million people who can’t speak, who are connected to 3 billion who desire to see them thrive. These 370 million people are nonverbal, yet have private social networks of 10 or more people.

The most basic human need, communication is the single biggest barrier to accelerating literacy. 2016 Gold Edison Award winner for Social Innovation. Recognized for entrepreneurship and innovation alongside Tesla, Space X and Apple. Pilot with the largest school system in USA. We just announced “Think to Speak” beta – the first consumer EEG + mobile speech solution.

Our Mission: Smartstones technology makes it simpler for people with HCI challenges to speak with body language. Converting sensor data from wearable devices into speech.

Here’s how :prose works:
1. Tap the Speech Bubble to open the Manage Page.
2. Tap any gesture which you’d like to assign a phrase to.
3. Enter your phrase, and pick a color.
4. Tap the Speaker icon to return to the Canvas Page.
5. Perform the gesture and :prose will speak your phrase aloud, and display it on the screen.

speak :prose

The most advanced way to access literacy and core language using simple gestures. Available for iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.

For people with physical challenges, pair a sensory remote controller like Smartstones Touch, Apple Watch, and Emotiv brainwave headsets to speak with swipes, taps, or thought and facial commands.

Other Candidates

Kepler is unique in the humanitarian sphere: our tech-focused refugee higher ed program is based on a proven model designed for development contexts.

In the face of today’s global refugee crisis, higher education has potential to help refugees create development-focused, market-based solutions; yet opportunities to pursue tertiary education remain extremely limited. Kepler’s innovative model combines an online BA degree with in-person instruction and work experience. Using evidence from our pilot program in Kiziba refugee camp in Rwanda, Kepler is working in partnership with SNHU to increase refugees’ access to a world-class U.S. degree.

Our Mission: Kepler is increasing access to a world-class university degree for refugees, creating a global model to offer opportunity where almost none existed.

Iris AI is leveraging AI and the crowd, uniquely combining unsupervised, supervised and reinforcement machine learning to democratize access to science.

Iris AI is an artificial intelligence that will read all of the world’s research and help us connect the dots. Initially as a assistant helping innovators navigate the research landscape: give her any scientific text over 500 words and she maps out all related research. In 3-5 years, Iris will be able to respond to specific prompts, finding e.g. the right method. In 10 years, she is a researcher herself, doing Literature Based Discovery – and eventually she can train other AI’s in science!

Our Mission: Discovering existing solutions to problems hidden in vast amounts of scientific literature; from cancer to climate change research.

Mentive delivers a live, social and hands-on learning experience assured to build your skills, innovating in a market full of video & text content.

Could you imagine having to go through your college education without asking a single question or talking to your peers? Sounds crazy? – that’s exactly what students of online courses face today!

Mentive solves the engagement and applicability problem of online education by creating live, social and hands-on learning experiences. Students collaborate in project-based live classes facilitated by topic experts designed to develop on-demand skills fast, at a tiny fraction of the price.

Our Mission: The go-to destination for millions of people to share, learn and develop on-demand skills at a fraction of the price – learning meets crowdsourcing.

Focus At Will is a tech platform that helps professionals be four times more productive at work.

It delivers unique music channels, custom engineered for each user’s brain type. We’re a world class team of doctors, technologists and music producers, with a new work tool that helps people focus better. We’ve had 1m users in last 3 years, and 80% of our subscribers pay again every year. Users include engineers from Google, Apple, Tesla, SpaceX, Amazon who rely on Focus@Will every day to get their work done.

Our Mission: We increase focused attention at work. 66% of employees report time wasting at least 1 hour per day.