Samsung is a company that creates tech to solve real human problems that help people to Do What They Can't - the mobile brand slogan.

Our main objective was to promote the Samsung Galaxy Sport Watch with a product innovation that solves a problem in sport. Through our research we found that almost 40% of Australians are deaf or hard of hearing, which prevents them from playing team sport, because they can't hear the referee's whistle when it's blown. This led to many stories around teenagers being excluded from team sports due to hearing difficulties. As sport is a big part of Australian culture, we set out to solve this problem using Samsung tech - more specifically the Galaxy Sport smart watch.

Thousands of hard of hearing and deaf Australin teens and children are excluded from regular team sport because they can’t hear the referee’s whistle when it’s blown. Meaning sports clubs often won’t allow them to play due to the disadvantage it can create.

So our creative idea is The Silent Whistle - an app for the Samsung Galaxy Sport watch that picks up the frequency of a referee’s whistle and responds with an instant vibrating alert to the deaf player.

Enabling hard of hearing kids and athletes to be included in regular team sports.

The existing platform is the Tizen software and mic of the Galaxy Sport watch.

Through Samsung’s partnership with Netball Australia we discovered that 40% of Austrlaians suffer from some form of hearing impairment. This excludes many children and teens from playing regular team sports like netball because they can’t hear the referee’s whistle when it’s blown.

As part of our sponsorship with sport and our sports products like the Gear Sport watch our strategy was two fold.

1: Prove that Samsung make what can't be made so you can do what can't be done (in relation to sport).

2: Inclusion. More specifically, by enabling deaf people who can't play team sports to play, our main strategy for promoting the watch and the Silent Whistle was inclusion and empowerment. Our target audience was both the deaf and hard of hearing sports players and grass roots clubs. So part of our strategy was to garner support and contact with the Deaf Children Australia organisation to be put in touch with deaf children and sports teams that we can implement the product with.

The execution was the app built specifically for the Galaxy Sport Watch that was programmed so the watch mic picks up the exact frequency of a standard referee's whistle. Before we developed the app, we reached out to the Deaf Children Association of Australia to ensure the idea and solution would have a benefit to deaf sports players. Once this was confirmed, we developed the app, involving months of testing and refining until the prototype had an 80-100% success rate in a controlled outdoor environment.

We then created content with deaf teenagers who've been excluded from sport due to their hearing and introduced the solution to them. We also got the watch into relevant clubs with deaf players so the app could be tested. At the time of this writing it has been used at local netball games in Sydney and Melbourne.

The results are very encouraging so far with an accuracy rate of 95% of detecting the whistle sound. Through our support from Deaf Children Australia, we have partnered with clubs to get deaf players using the watch at local games in Sydney and Melbourne with a plan to roll out across many more clubs across Australia in the near future.