By KPC Reporter
In a dazzling triumph for Kenyan ingenuity, Elly Savatia, 25, has bagged the 2025 Africa Prize for Engineering Innovation for creating an AI-powered app that gives speech a visible voice through 3D sign-language avatars.
The innovation, developed under his startup Signvrse, translates real-time speech into sign language, offering a lifeline to Africa’s deaf and hard-of-hearing communities.
With a continent-wide shortage of interpreters, Terp 360 bridges a communication gap that has long silenced millions in classrooms, hospitals, offices, and public spaces.
Powered by a database of over 2,300 locally recorded signs, the app ensures cultural and linguistic accuracy, providing an affordable, inclusive alternative to human interpretation.
Savatia, visibly moved as he received the £50,000 (about KSh 8.6 million) prize from the Royal Academy of Engineering, called it “a testament to Africa’s unstoppable wave of assistive technology.”
“I’m looking forward to the excellence that will come out of Signvrse, the rest of the shortlistees, and the African continent.”
The Nairobi-based engineer now plans to expand Terp 360’s reach into schools, corporations, and healthcare institutions, empowering organizations to communicate more inclusively with deaf communities.
Kenya’s tech brilliance shone doubly bright at the event, with fellow innovator Carol Ofafa named a finalist for her project E-Safiri — a network of solar-powered charging and battery-swapping stations for electric bikes and motorbikes.
Her eco-friendly system cuts downtime for riders while channeling surplus solar energy to nearby homes.
Other finalists hailed from Uganda and Ghana, earning £10,000 each for their cutting-edge projects in healthcare and sustainable farming.
The “One to Watch” prize of £5,000 went to Mozambique’s Rui Bauhofer, whose biodegradable plates made from maize husks promise a greener dining future.
Held in Dakar, Senegal, the award ceremony marked the first time the Africa Prize was hosted in Francophone Africa.
Since its launch in 2014, the programme has supported over 160 innovators across 20 countries, transforming big ideas into scalable businesses that redefine what African engineering can achieve.