Kenyan innovator Elly Savatia has won the 2025 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation for developing Terp 360, an AI-powered application that translates speech into sign language using 3D avatars.
- •The tool addresses Africa’s chronic shortage of sign language interpreters and aids people who are deaf or who have difficulty hearing in schools, workplaces, and public services.
- •Savatia’s victory also marks a milestone for Kenya’s growing technology scene, which has increasingly turned toward assistive and inclusive digital tools.
- •The award, given by the Royal Academy of Engineering, carries a £50,000 (about KSh 8.6 million) grant to scale the innovation, making it the continent’s most prestigious engineering prize.
“I’m totally grateful for this and it is a testament to the innovative assistive technology work that is coming from Africa. I’m really looking forward to the excellence that will come out of Signvrse, the rest of the shortlistees and the African continent,” Elly Savatia said.
Savatia’s Terp 360 uses a dataset of more than 2,300 locally recorded signs to ensure cultural and linguistic accuracy. Its avatars translate real-time speech into sign language, offering a low-cost alternative to human interpretation.
The team behind the app plans to expand into the education, corporate, and healthcare markets, targeting institutions that serve large hearing-impaired populations.
Other Finalists
Another Kenyan engineer, Carol Ofafa, was among the 2025 Africa Prize finalists for her startup E-Safiri, which builds solar-powered charging and battery-swapping hubs for electric bicycles and motorbikes. The system reduces downtime for riders and supports the region’s growing e-mobility sector while feeding surplus solar power to nearby households.
Other finalists included innovators from Uganda and Ghana, each receiving £10,000 for their projects in healthcare and sustainable agriculture. A “One to Watch” prize worth £5,000 went to Mozambique’s Rui Bauhofer for developing biodegradable plates made from maize husks.
Since its launch in 2014, the Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation has supported more than 160 entrepreneurs across 20 African countries, helping transform early-stage ideas into scalable businesses.
The prize was awarded at a live event in Dakar, Senegal, the first time the ceremony has been hosted in Francophone Africa.