This university student's repurposed AI translates ASL into English

About two weeks ago, Priyanhali Gupta, a third year student at the Vellore Institute of Technology (VIT) in India, posted a self-created project to her LinkedIn page. In it, the computer science major showcased a demo for an AI model that can translate a few ASL signs into English. Gupta's project was created using transfer learning from a pre-trained model called ssd_mobilenet. In other words, she was able to re-purpose existing code in order to meet the specifications of her ASL detector. It's worth pointing out that the model doesn't necessarily translate signs into English, but rather identifies an object displayed on webcam and then evaluates how similar said object is to the six pre-programmed phrases listed above.