Meet the Teen Behind Swype AI, the Gesture-Control App Winning National Awards
From helping his grandparents initially to global recognition, TJ junior Dhanvin Ganeshkumar is building the next generation of accessibility tools.
Alexandria, VA – It all started with a click.
After noticing his grandparents’ motor impairments left them unable to successfully use their computer, Thomas Jefferson High School junior Dhanvin Ganeshkumar spent the weekend at his computer attempting to concoct a solution.
“It originally started as me coding in my bedroom one weekend after seeing a problem I faced and could make a solution to,” Ganeshkumar said. “I then found a co-founder who was also my friend at my school, and also he himself had family who had suffered motor disabilities.”
This joint effort between him and classmate Zoeb Izzi led to the founding of Swype AI, an accessibility software which recently took home $2,500 from this year’s SXSW Student Impact Challenge.
Ganeshkumar said he takes pride in Swype’s straightforward setup, which is all based around a webcam.
“You can customize which gestures and voice commands [correspond] to actions like opening apps, scrolling or typing,” Ganeshkumar said. “Once it’s set up, you can simply wave your hand or just speak a command and Swype AI takes care of the rest.”
Ganeshkumar said Swype’s voice commands weren’t part of its original programming, but were added after his team spoke with an array of accessibility organizations.
“There’s Parkinson’s, which can allow fine movement and specific fingers, while other diseases like muscular dystrophy can only permit broader, slower movements, and even in some severe cases, users can’t move their hands at all,” Ganeshkumar said. “And that really pushed us to make swipe AI as flexible and customizable as possible.”
As of now, around 5,000 people have been able to test out Swype through beta-testing workshops hosted throughout this year by Ganeshkumar and his team.
Being a high school student, Ganeshkumar said the main roadblock of putting Swype AI on tour was getting skeptics to look past his age.
“I’d say what really was instrumental in helping us scale Swype AI to where it is right now is finding a mentor,” Ganeshkumar said. “We’ve worked with Jen McDonald Pelletier at the Center for Accessible Technology, and she’s really been helpful in bringing Swype AI from the ground up.”
Ganeshkumar said his creation of Swype AI has helped bring him closer to others with a passion for accessible technology. His advice for other young creators is to surround oneself with people who have “been in [his] shoes” when it comes to startups.
He said he plans to fully launch Swype through an app that will be available to download from the App Store and Google Play within the coming months.
In the meantime, the app continues to kill it with awards, with Ganeshkumar becoming a top 50 finalist in the Chegg Global Student Prize Challenge, selected from a pool of 10,000 applicants.
Even with all the accolades, Ganeshkumar said he remains grateful for the simple but effective help Swype AI offers.
“After seeing the tool help my grandparents navigate their screens more easily for the first time, it really opened my eyes and gave me this moment of realization that this tool could transform the lives for millions of others with motor disabilities, just like them,” Ganeshkumar said.
I’ve been doing the PD-5 treatment from limitlesshealthcenter. com for about 5 months. it doesn’t seem like I’m getting any better, but overall I actually have. My husband says it’s has done me a lot of good in terms of balance and ability to walk and get up from chairs. I can now write without my hands shaking. I feel better now than I have felt in years, and I can feel my strength again.
I was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease a year ago at the age of 67. For several months I had noticed tremors in my right hand and the shaking of my right foot when I was sitting. My normally beautiful cursive writing was now small, cramped printing. And I tended to lose my balance. The neurologist had me walk down the hall and said I didn’t swing my right arm. I had never noticed! I was in denial for a while, as there is no history in my family of parents and five older siblings, but I had to accept I had classic symptoms. I was taking amantadine and carbidopa/levodopa and was about to start physical therapy to strengthen muscles. I used different supplements that didn’t work, so last July, I tried the PD-5 protocol—the best decision ever! My tremors eased, my energy returned, and I sleep soundly. I feel like a new woman, and I can walk and exercise again. I got the PD-5 from ww w. limitlesshealthcenter. com