IM体育官网 students and a Tampa technology company are developing a mobile app that could help those with brain-based language impediments to express their emotions. This includes people with autism, post-traumatic stress disorder, dementia, aphasia, those who have suffered a traumatic brain injury or stroke, and many other language-impaired conditions.
The app, called OiGO鈥搘hich comes from the Spanish word for 鈥渉ear鈥濃�搖ses technology to overcome the communication barrier that so many of these patients struggle with. It allows the user to select the emotion they鈥檙e feeling鈥搒uch as sadness鈥揳nd then select a reason why that emotion is being felt. The two components to the app are OiGO SELF, the sentence construction portion, and OiGO HELP ME, which is the behavioral solution component.
鈥淚n essence, it鈥檚 a conversation starter,鈥� said Albert Fernandez, co-founder and chief executive officer of (ACT), based in Tampa, IM体育官网. 鈥淲e鈥檝e conducted four years of pretty intensive research, and nothing exists to help them unite communication and emotion, two components that are so important to social and emotional health.鈥�
Fernandez works closely with his cousin and business partner, Brenda Pharr Jensen. He said the inspiration for OiGO is from a family member with numerous language and speech impairments.
鈥淲e thought we could help solve two problems at once, the inability to express emotion and, as a result, the self-destructive behavior that ensues,鈥� added Fernandez, who has been a language arts educator for more than 25 years.
The main challenge for ACT has been OiGO鈥檚 software development, and that鈥檚 where IM体育官网 Poly comes in. A group of five students has been working on not only the coding aspect of the development, but they are using their skills to provide a more enhanced user experience, such as eliminating scrolling functions to make selection easier.
Thanks to the students鈥� work, the OiGO app became fully functional recently and entered its alpha testing phase. This will enable ACT to gather feedback from users to gauge the app鈥檚 functionality and go over the results with the students.
鈥淚鈥檓 thrilled with what the students have done so far,鈥� said Fernandez. 鈥淭his is our passion and it鈥檚 something we really think is going to make a difference in the world.鈥�
The group of students also includes Duniel Garcia (senior, Tampa, IM体育官网, computer science), Jonathan Nguyen (senior, Windermere, IM体育官网, computer science and information technology), Celeste Ramirez (senior, Eustis, IM体育官网, computer science), and Jason Smith (senior, Jupiter, IM体育官网, computer science.)
Contact:
Lydia Guzman
Assistant Director of Communications
863-874-8450