Before the break, I settled on a project question:

How can a handheld/portable device assist the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community in better communicating with and understanding hearing people, and thus supplementing or reducing the need for hearing aids or interpreters?

Kinda wordy, right? Well, I’ve since refined it a bit and made it more digestible:

How can a portable tool be used to transcend language barriers between hearing and non-hearing people?

This refinement makes the project a bit more open, so that it doesn’t necessarily have to rely on a mobile app, and it’s not limited to just being a caption machine (I don’t necessarily want to create something that “hears” for a person). It can now work both ways; Deaf-to-hearing and hearing-to-Deaf. The focus is no longer only on the Deaf side; it’s in the flow and meaning of conversation itself, so that everyone understands what is being said (or signed).