SeñaPUCE: Ecuadorian tech breaking down sign language barriers
Facing a laptop with a webcam, Adrián Sánchez, a Systems Engineering student at the Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador (PUCE), makes a gesture as if grabbing long mustaches from his cheeks. On one side of the screen, the tool recognizes the hand movement in relation to his head and shows the word "cat". Next to it appear "like", "happy" and "sad". The program has just detected Ecuadorian Sign Language (LSEC) in real time.
What SeñaPUCE is
SeñaPUCE is a platform built by 14 students and two professors from PUCE's Systems Engineering and Education Sciences programs. The project began in January 2026 and finished development in June, and includes several tools:
- LSEC → written Spanish translator in real time using a webcam.
- Spoken Spanish → LSEC translator, which transcribes spoken words and shows them in signs.
- An app to learn the alphabet and numbers in LSEC.
- MateSeñasEC, a tool to practice basic math in sign language, capable of handling figures up to 100.
The software has already been tested at a Ministry of Education school with hearing-impaired children, and the code is available on GitHub so volunteers can add words or improve the development, built with technologies such as Python, Java and JavaScript.
A country with an inclusion debt
The numbers explain why this matters: according to the National Council on Disabilities, at least 64,174 people in Ecuador live with hearing disabilities, yet the country has only about one sign language interpreter for every 15 people with this condition, according to PUCE studies. Translating Spanish into signs —or teaching signs to those who do not know them— is a huge gap that software can begin to close at scale.
Lessons for businesses
The SeñaPUCE case proves something we say at SimCodec every day: custom software is not a luxury, it is a transformation tool. A small team, with limited resources and a clear need, built in months a solution no generic product offered:
- Start with the real problem, not the technology. The team started from five deaf students at their own university.
- Accessibility is a competitive advantage. A business that serves hearing-impaired people —with a sign-translating assistant or content in LSEC— reaches an underserved market and builds loyalty.
- Open source multiplies impact. Publishing the base lets others adapt it without starting from scratch.
How we approach it at SimCodec
At SimCodec we develop custom software for Ecuadorian companies and SMEs, and we know the best technology is the one that solves a concrete problem for real people. We were founded by five partners with ten years of joint experience and count on EPIC as our regional strategic partner. If your organization has a process no generic software solves —including making your services accessible— let's talk: we can evaluate the problem and build the solution, as the PUCE students did, but at the scale and with the support your operation needs.
