ZENYAI

Significant Social Impact Award (Sponsored by Joy Tong Women in Business)

Team ZENYAI is made up of Computer Science graduate students Arun Kumar Coimbatore Dada and Saicharan Mudiraj, Business Administration seniors Julia Marino and Michael Reppucci, Computer Science freshman Palak Sharma, and Mechanical Engineering freshman Oluwatomisin Oladunjoye. They are working to create an AI platform that turns emotions into personalized soundscapes for nonverbal and autistic children to be able to express themselves. Many people struggle to understand their own emotions and how they impact their thoughts, behaviors, and well-being since traditional communication often neglects the subtle nuances of emotional expression. The team won the Significant Social Impact Award (Sponsored by Joy Tong Women in Business) and $4,000 worth of funding at the 2024 DifferenceMaker $50,000 Idea Challenge.

During their pitch, Team ZENYAI explained how they are working to develop advanced software that adapts in real-time to the user’s emotional state creating a therapeutic and expressive outlet that is unique to the current market. This software allows children who struggle with traditional communication methods to not just express what they are feeling but to achieve a higher level of emotional connection with whoever they are speaking to. To use this software the user must speak into any device and the AI detects the emotions the user is feeling through soundscapes and from there detects patterns of emotions. Currently, this software has a 93% accuracy rate and can detect up to 63 different emotions.

With the funding they received from the Idea Challenge, they plan to finalize their product through research and development in training their AI, market their product to the autistic community, and develop their pilot program for families so they can try this product out for free and the team can receive feedback.