INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 139 No. 55
THURSDAY, APRIL 27, 2023 n ITHACA, NEW YORK
12 Pages – Free
News
Dining
Science
Weather
Spelling Bee
Hidden Gems
Apple Crisps
Sunny
Melodramatics Theatre Company performed "The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee" in four sold-out shows. | Page 3
Reva Rao '26 rates the top five little-known treats in Cornell Dining facilities around campus. | Page 7
Cornell researchers find mild winters afffect NYS apple and grape production as spring warms the region. | Page 12
HIGH: 61º LOW: 42º
Class of 2023 Convocation Speaker Announced Actor and comedian Ken Jeong will be speaking to the senior class on May 25 as keynote speaker By SOFIA RUBINSON Sun Managing Editor
The Class of 2023 can expect a laugh at the Senior Convocation on Thursday, May 25. Actor and comedian Ken Jeong — who starred in the film series “The Hangover” as Leslie Chow and the reality singing competition “The Masked Singer” as a panelist — was announced as the keynote speaker on Wednesday. Jeong was selected by the student-run 2023 Convocation Committee. “Ken Jeong was a highly coveted speaker and, from the beginning, our committee was thrilled about the prospect of having him join the Class of ’23,” said Yasmin Ballew ’23, chair of the committee, in a statement to the Cornell Chronicle. “Of the many names we discussed, he stood out for his passion, commitment to advocacy and, of course, his humor.”
Jeong wrote, produced and starred in the ABC School of Medicine in 1995. In the summer before sitcom “Dr. Ken,” a show that was based on his attending medical school, Jeong took acting classes at experiences in medicine prior to becoming a stand-up the University of California, Los Angeles. comedian. He also planned the role of Ben Chang While a medical student, Jeong was a regular at on the critically acclaimed series “Community” and has acted in the films “Crazy Rich open mic nights in the Raleigh-Durham circuit. After earning his degree, he moved to Los Angeles Asians,” “Knocked Up” and “The Duff.” In addition to his performance career, to practice medicine while performing regularly at Jeong is a licensed physician and an The Improv and Laugh Factory comedy clubs. His stand-up comedy led to anti-rachis landing small parts in ism advotelevision shows such as cate. He has “Of the many names we discussed, “The Office,” “Curb Your been vocal [Jeong] stood out for his passion, comEnthusiasm” and HBO’s about the rise mitment to advocacy and, of course, “Entourage” before landin racism and hate crimes ing larger roles. his humor.” against the Senior Convocation Yasmin Ballew ’23 Asian American will take place on May 25 community in at 1 p.m. in Barton Hall recent years. for undergraduate graduJeong ates part of the Class of began acting while attend- 2023. Graduating graduate and professional students, ing Duke University as an in addition to the current Cornell community, will be undergraduate and later invited as space allows. received his M.D. from the University of North Carolina Sofia Rubinson can be reached at srubinson@cornellsun.com. BRINSON+BANKS / THE NEW TORK TIMES
Candidates Express Students Boost Braille Literacy Views in S.A. Forum Student entrepreneurs developed smart braille glove By ISABELA WILSON
By CHRISTOPHER WALKER Sun Contributor
The candidates for Student Assembly president and executive vice president met to discuss their qualifications and plans for dealing with pertinent issues of the student body in a forum on Tuesday, April 25. Among the discussed topics were student relations with the University Administration, free speech and plans to restore the S.A.’s legitimacy within the student
body. The Q&A-style forum was moderated by Angela Bunay ’24, who is the current editor-in-chief of The Sun. Presidential Forum This year’s candidates for S.A. president are Sanvi Bhardwaj ’24, Pedro Da Silveira ’25 and Patrick Kuehl ’24. Bhardwaj, a health care policy major in the College of Human Ecology, currently serves as the See FORUM page 5
MING DEMERS / SUN ASSISTANT PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
Presidential pleas | Candidates for Student Assembly president answer questions about their priorities and qualifications in a Tuesday forum.
Sun Staff Writer
“If you traced the word cat, the glove would read out ‘C-A-T cat’,” Jain said. “It’s almost like Google translate which would point at another language’s text and read out the translation — it’s the same for braille. [The user] uses the glove to feel the braille dots and can correlate the
Two Cornell students have created BrailleWear, a smart glove that aims to improve accessibility and increase braille literacy rates among the visually impaired. BrailleWear was co-founded by information science student Kushagra Jain ’23 and Nolan School of Hotel Administration student Lyon Li ’23 in 2022. The duo founded BrailleWear under their compaCO UR ny ORama AI to develop TE SY OF and manufacture a smart glove KU SH that would enable the visually AG impaired to read braille while p a t - RA JA I also learning how to understand tern with N '23 A its audio ND LY braille code in the process. ON translation.” The Technology LI '2 3 The smart glove’s The smart glove is worn on the user’s right hand. A camera pattern detection uses is located between its thumb a pre-existing algorithm called and index finger, tracking the YOLO, which stands for “You movement of the index finger as Only Look Once.” YOLO has it traces the braille. Computer the capability to detect large vision technology is then used braille blocks and locate their to translate and read aloud the proximity to the user’s finger. The duo also developed their braille that was just traced.
own convolutional neural network architecture, an artificial intelligence technology that is useful for finding patterns in images to recognize objects, which is key in identifying individual braille characters. Finally, an optimized language model leverages context to fix rare detection inaccuracies. The working model yielded 90 percent accuracy under select conditions. Braille is a universal character set, meaning that the BrailleWear smart glove can be used in many languages. “The only [step] that changes is the language model, which can be switched out for any language you’re reading in,” Jain said. The project was largely influenced by Jain’s experiences while volunteering at an institution for the visually impaired in Bengaluru, India, where he developed a close bond with many of the students. As he continued volunteering, Jain said he was surprised to learn that braille
See BRAILLE page 4