The European Commission is providing substantial support to sign language technology. Within the Seventh Framework Programme two new (and similar) projects are funded:

• SignSpeak: Scientific understanding and vision-based technological development for continuous sign language recognition and translation
• Dict-a-Sign: Sign language recognition, generation and modelling with application in deaf communication

Both projects will start in April 2009, and run for three years. The total EC contribution amounts to more than 5.75 million euros.