“iHelp” APP assists deaf and dumb people call emergency services

Cai Jia-wei (蔡佳緯), a student in the Department of Computer Science and Information Engineering at SHU-TE University, has just spent two years developing the iHelp APP. Cai Jia-wei’s motivation for developing the APP came after his parents, who are both deaf and dumb, were unable to call for help after they found themselves in an emergency situation. In addition to this, Cai Jia-wei had seen countless news reports where deaf and dumb people had actually died when they found themselves in similar emergency situations. This year, after continual negotiations with government agencies, Cai Jia-wei launched his iHelp APP, an emergency text messaging service in partnership with the government. 

Cai Jia-wei said: “Taiwan’s emergency text messaging service has been in operation for nine years, but hasn’t received a single text message in all that time.” Clearly, the majority of Taiwanese people are unaware that an emergency text messaging service exists. A further problem has been continually changing text message numbers for reporting emergencies, which Cai Jia-wei believes will be solved by using his iHelp APP. With the new APP, should the government change the text number, iHelp APP automatically updates the information.  

The iHelp APP system allows deaf and dumb people to find help by means of text messaging. People with physical disabilities finding themselves in an accident simply open the APP and select “Fire”, “Robbery”, “Disturbance” or one of the other pre-set categories. The system then immediately detects the person’s GPS location and contacts the emergency services, thereby reducing the time and difficulty of reporting accidents for disabled people. 

“iHelp” APP assists deaf and dumb people call emergency services

URL:https://www.peopo.org/news/266709

(以下為中文對照)

「iHelp」APP 助聾啞人士報案求救

照片

就讀於樹德科技大學資訊工程所的蔡佳緯，因為新聞曾多次報導聾啞人士無法報案而意外身故的新聞，加上本身自己的父母就是聾啞人士，也曾遭遇無法打電話報案的緊急時刻，於是他便利用所學，花費兩年時間研發「iHelp」APP，經過與政府機關的不斷交涉，終於在今年與政府合作開放使用「iHelp」APP簡訊報案系統。

蔡佳緯說，「台灣的簡訊報案開放九年，但是沒收過一封報案簡訊。」有鑑於台灣人多數不知道有簡訊報案的系統，加上簡訊報案的號碼會一直更換，他便決定用「iHelp」APP，來解決報案號碼更換的問題，只要政府的報案號碼一更換，「iHelp」APP也會隨之更新資訊。

「iHelp」APP是一款讓聾啞人士能夠以簡訊報案的方式去求救的系統，身障者面臨意外發生，只要點開APP，選擇火災、搶劫、鬧事等預設類別，系統就能在最短時間內利用GPS偵測位置，以簡訊通報警消人員，藉此縮短報案時間同時也能降低身障者報案的難度。