Technology Transfer of Face Recognition to Strengthen Community Management for People with Disabilities

Abstract

Technology transfer to the community may improve social and economic development in an area while also hastening the process of technology adoption and use. As a result, the Pusat Pemulihan Dalam Komuniti (PPDK) Air Putih in Balik Pulau, Penang, has received the technology transfer project namely “An Advanced Face Recognition Technology” (i-FRAS 2.0) from Politeknik Balik Pulau (PBU). PPDK is a training and rehabilitation centre for children with the status Persons with Disabilities (OKU), which is supervised by the Jabatan Kebajikan Masyarakat (JKM). The problem faced is that PPDK officers record the attendance of OKU trainees in a conventional way, which is to write records in a logbook. This attendance record is also reported manually to the JKM officer for monthly allowance payment to each trainee. Attendance recording and generating reports like this is quite time-consuming, and PPDK officers have limited staff. Therefore, this study investigates the effectiveness of face recognition technology to record the attendance of OKU trainees and to identify the feedback from PPDK management of this technology transfer project. Ten PPDK staff who utilised this system were provided with User Experience Questionnaires (UEQ). An interview was also carried out with PPDK’s supervisor regarding the technology transfer of i-FRAS 2.0. The findings of the study show that the task of recording the attendance of trainees is time-saving. The transfer of face recognition technology through the i-FRAS 2.0 system was well organised, increased productivity, and eased the management of PPDK trainees. Future studies can examine the effectiveness of improved face recognition systems using the Raspberry Pi microprocessor.