DigiText

Robust Text Detection and Language Translation for Travelers. 

Optical character recognition, also known as text recognition, is a process of converting printed or handwritten characters into computer readable format. UCF I-Corps Team DigiText aims towards developing a text detection and text recognition software to distinguish characters and translate them into a different language. The original design of DigiText’s text recognition software was meant to accommodate the needs of international travelers, but other market applications were considered by the team.

In order to validate product receptivity in other markets, DigiText joined the I-Corps program and began to engage in the customer discovery process. The DigiText team was able to identify educators and supermarket shoppers as potential customer bases for their product. Automatic grading assignments or exams can also be monetized and finished in significantly less time than by hand. Performing grocery shopping and price matching any product could be as simple as taking a picture of the product’s barcode or name. In addition to language recognition and translation, all of these uses have the potential to seriously disrupt the tech industry as we know it. Other market applications, such as virtual reality, were invalidated after utilizing UCF I-Corps methodology because of the incompatibilities between DigiText’s technology and current market opportunities. However, augmented reality was found to be a promising application due to the nature of computer-generated sensory input.

UCF I-Corps team DigitText was comprised of Sarfaraz Hussein, as the Entrepreneurial Lead, Ulas Bagci, Ph. D., of UCF’s Center for Research in Computer Vision, as the Principle Investigator, and Deepak Mohan who mentored the team. The team also had help from two UCF students, Dong Zhang and Waqas Sultani.