Huawei, today unveils ‘True Stories’, a new campaign that highlights how an open and collaborative approach to technology can make the world a better place. The ‘True Stories’ campaign is based on a range of recent projects undertaken by Huawei that show that by applying technology effectively, we can positively change the world.

“At Huawei we want to use technology to build bridges between people, not walls,” said Walter Ji, CEO, Huawei Consumer Business Group, Western Europe. “Regardless of who we are, or where we come from, we believe that technology can and should be used to make the world a better place. Over the past few years, we have wholeheartedly committed to achieving this vision, using our advanced technology, and in many cases our highly intelligent smartphones.”

The launch of ‘Huawei True Stories’ sees the unveiling of a new emotive film which showcases six of Huawei’s projects from around the world, alongside a story that encourages the world to embrace forward-thinking technology to bring new possibilities to people every day.

https://youtu.be/Ye3Jxg283iY

The campaign is also supported by a new online portal where consumers can discover more details about the ‘True Stories’ projects undertaken by Huawei in recent years in more detail.

Featured projects from Huawei include:

Inspiring Deaf Children to Learn to Read with StorySign

In partnership with the European Union of the Deaf, the British Deaf Association, Penguin Books and Aardman Animations, Huawei created ‘StorySign’; a free mobile app that aims to help the 32 million deaf children around the globe to read by using AI and AR to translate text from selected books into sign language.

The StorySign books have been so popular that a further 4 books are being added to the app portfolio in each of the 13 sign languages in Western Europe and Australia. New book titles include children’s favourites such as Max the Brave, There’s a Dragon in Your Book and All about Spot.

In addition, Huawei this year has been recognised and supported for its progress with StorySign, receiving seven Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity 2019 Awards, 4 of which were Gold, the highest number of Cannes Lions Awards awarded to any Chinese brand at Cannes.

Protecting the Rainforest with AI

Working with a non-profit organisation, Rainforest Connect, Huawei developed unique ‘listening’ technology to help detect and fight illegal logging in South America, as well as protect some of the earth’s most threatened species, such as the endangered Spider Monkey.

With rainforest sounds being too complex for humans to interpret, Huawei and Rainforest Connect used upcycled Huawei smartphones to collect two years’ worth of rainforest sounds and upload the recordings to the cloud. Using Huawei’s big data service and powerful AI, the sounds could be analysed in real-time, meaning local rangers could be alerted to threatening noises, such as chainsaws or trucks, which enabled them to react quickly.

Helping the Blind Sense Emotions

In partnership with the Polish Blind Association and the blind community, Huawei created Facing Emotions; a mobile app that brings new technology to blind and visually-impaired people to help them ‘see’ emotions through the power of sound. Using the powerful camera and AI of Huawei smartphones, the Facing Emotions app scans the face of the person the blind person is talking to, identifies their eyes, nose and mouth, then processes this information in real-time and converts it into an emotion which is ‘translated’ into a sound from the phone.

Since launch, the Facing Emotions app has been downloaded over 1,000 times across 22 countries.

Connecting Children to a Better Education

Following the United Nations agreeing to 17 sustainable development goals for the year 2020, Huawei believes that the path to more sustainable futures starts with education. With over 10 million children between 5-14 years in Nigeria not in school, Huawei founded RuralStar, a rural network solution that brings mobile connectivity through low-energy cell towers and simplified signal boxes.

Track AI: Using Smartphones to Fight Disease

In collaboration with DIVE Medical, Huawei created Track AI; an innovative software that monitors and tracks the gaze of children’s eyes to help detect visual impairment, which is estimated to affect 19 million children globally.