If there’s something we love here at The Upside, it’s putting the skills you already have to work for the greater good. And that’s just what these two University of Washington undergraduates have done: Navid Azodi and Thomas Pryor have invented a pair of gloves that translate sign language into spoken English, giving hearing-impaired people the opportunity to express themselves and to literally be heard.

The hope is that these lightweight, easy to wear gloves will become as commonplace as hearing aids in the very near future. Navid and Thomas, who met during their Freshman year at college and bonded over their shared love of problem-solving, even won a $10,000 Lemelson-MIT Student Prize for their invention, SignAloud.

In our minds, anything that will help humans understand each other just a little bit better is a step in the right direction.