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Elira Duro is an Albanian American designer based in New York City. Her work looks to create more equitable and loving realities for all people. She leverages emerging technologies, participatory action research and design thinking to arrive at innovative solutions for and with communities.
How can removing language barriers help us imagine a more loving United States of America?
Jemi Nje started by looking at how we can foster more love for immigrants in the United States of America. Elira researched how love shows up in everyday life, read literature on the topic and engaged in participatory action design research with various immigrant communities to see how design could help. Her findings showed that language barriers, mental health and economic/career opportunities are the top three challenges immigrants face. Without communication of course mental health is burdened and opportunities are limited. Communication enables us to understand, care, respect and know others, it is the foundation needed to foster love for ourselves and others. Jemi Nje looks to help the 1.8 million people living in New York City with Limited English Proficiency.
Jemi Nje is an application, a gesture and a speaker facilitating translation. The application uses various Google APIs but for users all they have to do is flip the stand to cue translation. Instead of tapping a screen and figuring out different settings, Jemi Nje’s gesture is easy to learn. It allows the user to pay attention to the person they are speaking to instead of focusing on a screen.
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The speaker for Jemi Nje is a parametric speaker which means it creates directed sound. Unlike other speakers that diffuse sound throughout a room, this speaker points sound to a particular location. This is important for maintaining privacy and also to mimic the physical nature of communication. The speaker follows the conversation and directs itself to the person who needs to hear the translation.
Jemi Nje : We Are One
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Elira Duro is an Albanian American designer based in New York City. Her work looks to create more equitable and loving realities for all people. She leverages emerging technologies, participatory action research and design thinking to arrive at innovative solutions for and with communities.
How can removing language barriers help us imagine a more loving United States of America?
Jemi Nje started by looking at how we can foster more love for immigrants in the United States of America. Elira researched how love shows up in everyday life, read literature on the topic and engaged in participatory action design research with various immigrant communities to see how design could help. Her findings showed that language barriers, mental health and economic/career opportunities are the top three challenges immigrants face. Without communication of course mental health is burdened and opportunities are limited. Communication enables us to understand, care, respect and know others, it is the foundation needed to foster love for ourselves and others. Jemi Nje looks to help the 1.8 million people living in New York City with Limited English Proficiency.