How this Northeastern student is giving a voice to the voiceless
Anwita Chaudhry, a third year computer science student, is developing an app to help nonverbal students better communicate with their peers and loved ones.
When Northeastern University student Anwita Chaudhry was in high school and middle school, she often felt it was unfair whenever she saw special education students separated from their fellow classmates.
“We always had special needs students in their own separate classroom and they were brought in to interact with us maybe once a year,” she said. “During recess, they were kept in a separate playground.”
Chaudhry didn’t think it was right that those students were not always welcomed in certain spaces, she said. That’s a big reason why she launched her nonprofit organization, DesiHeart, while she was still a freshman in high school in 2020.
“The name DesiHeart is a play on the phrase ‘the heart’s desire,’ which reflects our belief that everyone should have the ability to express what is in their heart,” said Chaudry, who is today a third-year computer science student at Northeastern University.
Through virtual drama workshops, summer programs, and even coding classes, the organization helps support neurodiverse students – individuals who fall under the autism spectrum or have other developmental and learning conditions.
DesiHeart’s mission is to help those students improve their speaking and motor skills and reach their development goals, explained Chaudhry, who is president of the organization.
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At Northeastern, she is combining her work at the nonprofit and her studies in artificial intelligence to help make an even bigger impact for this community. Specifically, Chaurdhry is developing a new mobile application designed to help nonverbal students communicate more naturally.
While still early in development, ExpressAI, the name of her mobile application, will use AI to translate written text into spoken audio with emotion and inflection. The goal of the app is to help replace more monotone text-to-voice systems that currently dominate the market, she said.
For example, if a user is trying to express love to their mother or father, they can type out what they would like to say and the app, understanding the context of the message, will read the text back with the proper emotion and tone, Chaudhry said.
The technology works by using sentiment analysis, the process of an AI model analyzing volumes of text to detect positive or negative attributes. It is also used by many companies to field customer service requests by routing calls to appropriate departments. It is able to flag when customers are happy or frustrated, according to the technology company IBM.
“This is a space that hasn’t been innovated in awhile,” she said. Being able to communicate through voice effectively and naturally is a “privilege everyone should have.”
Chaudhry has received federal funding to help get the app up and running. She also has received additional funding from Northeastern after earning first place in the AI & technology category for the Women Who Empower Initiative, a university-wide program meant to celebrate and empower women in the Northeastern community.
Chaudhry said winning this honor has done wonders for her credibility and will help her fundraise for the app.
‘The award is helping us take ExpressAI from the design stage toward development and further our mission of making technology more accessible,” she said.
Chaudhry initially entered Northeastern as a biology major with plans to practice medicine, but early on she said she felt she could have more influence working in tech.
That pivot was inspired in part by the work she did at her nonprofit where she communicated with students using video conferencing software and other technology tools, she said. During those meetings, she also saw firsthand how limiting some of the devices students used to communicate were, she said.
“It became clear that I needed to have a computer science degree to really develop something for them,” she said.
Chaudhry isn’t just learning in the classroom. She’s also working directly with Northeastern professors who are developing real world medical devices, including serving as an undergraduate assistant in Northeastern University’s Technology Equity and Accessibility Lab, which develops technologies to support those with disabilities.
Chaudhry works under the center’s director Maitraye Das, a Northeastern professor with dual appointments in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences and the Department of Art and Design.
For the past semester, Chaudhry has assisted with developing prototyping devices designed for children with cerebral visual impairment, a brain disorder that prevents children from being able to clearly see and interpret images.
Das said what stands out about Chaudhry is her drive and initiative to solve problems. One notable example was Chaudhry’s role in helping recruit families who had children with cerebral visual impairment to participate in the lab’s evaluations of the technology.
“She understands the challenges of this kind of community-centric work but still took on those challenges head on,” she said. “That I think is a very impressive quality especially for an undergrad.”
Das said she was also impressed by Chaudhry’s ability to balance her time between her school work at Northeastern and running her nonprofit.
“She’s juggling multiple responsibilities, and she’s doing great,” she said. “This award is a testament to all the amazing things she is doing.”
