12th February, 2026.
Jayashruthi Palanisamy has been nominated for the Wingecarribee Young Citizen of the Year Award in the 2026 Wingecarribee Shire Council Australia Day Awards, recognising her work in the field of STEM. Jayashruthi has demonstrated her creativity and engineering skills by developing a glove that helps to improve communications between sign language users wearing the glove and those around them. The glove works by translating the hand signals into speech and spoken responses into text. Named the Echo glove, it was developed as part of her early-commencement HSC Design and Technology course. Jayashruthi's Echo Glove reached the level of National Award Finalist 2025 in the category of Young Innovator Of The Year in the 2025 Next Gen awards, which recognised young people that are driving change, leading initiatives, and shaping the future. Well done Jayashruthi, you have a bright future ahead.
