World Around You

A majority of Deaf children across the world are experiencing a lack of literacy resources. Due to a shortage of adults proficient in native sign languages, Deaf children are unable to access stories during a critical period of their language and cognitive development. This is the problem World Around You aims to solve.

World Around You is an open source, web-based authoring platform that allows for the creation and distribution of multilingual signed stories with written text across the Internet. Contributors combine images, text, and videos of signing storytellers to create web-based visual storybooks featuring local, regional, and national sign languages. The platform also provides classroom management features so teachers can use it to educate their students.

What separates World Around You from similar platforms is its dedication to open source and community development. We at WAY believe opening the platform to widespread participation from contributors and developers will pave the way to making Deaf content increasingly accessible to the widest audience possible.