Describe the creative idea

Thousands of hard of hearing and deaf Australin teens and children are excluded from regular team sport because they can’t hear the referee’s whistle when it’s blown. Meaning sports clubs often won’t allow them to play due to the disadvantage it can create. So our creative idea is The Silent Whistle - an app for the Samsung Galaxy Sport watch that picks up the frequency of a referee’s whistle and responds with an instant vibrating alert to the deaf player. Enabling hard of hearing kids and athletes to be included in regular team sports. The existing platform is the Tizen software and mic of the Galaxy Sport watch.

Describe the execution

The execution was the app built specifically for the Galaxy Sport Watch that was programmed so the watch mic picks up the exact frequency of a standard referee's whistle. Before we developed the app, we reached out to the Deaf Children Association of Australia to ensure the idea and solution would have a benefit to deaf sports players. Once this was confirmed, we developed the app, involving months of testing and refining until the prototype had an 80-100% success rate in a controlled outdoor environment. We then created content with deaf teenagers who've been excluded from sport due to their hearing and introduced the solution to them. We also got the watch into relevant clubs with deaf players so the app could be tested. At the time of this writing it has been used at local netball games in Sydney and Melbourne.