SpeakSee is a brand new device that captures the speech in conversations and transcribes it into text on your smartphone, in real time.
There are situations where deaf people can feel frustrated or isolated (such as a conversation that's not a one-to-one) It can make deaf person want to avoid this social situation as you just can’t keep up with topic changes.
SO HOW DOES SpeakSee WORK?
A microphone has to be placed close to the sound source such as the speaker, this is plugged into the smartphones, conference call-systems or a TV.
This sophisticated microphone technology captures the speech, even in noisy environments and transcribes it to text in real time (including punctuation).
In a group discussion, the deaf person can read who said what thanks to the colour-coded transcript.
Always subtitles!
WHO IS BEHIND SpeakSee?
Marcel Van Der Ven is the Co-founder & CTO and responsible for the technological development. Marcel has a Bachelors in Computer Engineering and he also has a background as an Research &Development engineer, this is where he was responsible for the complete process of hardware and software development.
“My motivation is first and foremost to create a new product that could have a positive impact on society. With SpeakSee we have created something where people can be included and nobody is left out because of a disability”
”During the last 1.5 years I’ve gained a much better understanding about people with hearing loss and how this impacts their daily lives, and I am happy that I get to use my engineering background to be part in creating a product that has the potential to benefit peoples’ lives.”
Jari Hazelback is the Co-founder & CEO and responsible for user testing, marketing and sales. Having grown up as a CODA (Child of Deaf Adults), with two Deaf parents he has a personal motive for developing a product based on what client need and want.
'''When I tell people I grew up with deaf parents, they often say things like: ‘Oh... well how was that for you? That must’ve been difficult..’ However, I never felt or noticed that my childhood was much different from anyone else’s. The only difficulty I had was seeing how my parents weren’t able to follow some conversations, like during family dinners.
I hope that SpeakSee will not only support my parents in the more challenging conversational settings, but also empower millions of other people with varying degrees of hearing loss to participate in any conversation, no matter the environment.''
WATCH THE VIDEO DEMO
The video shows a transcription of a conversation between Jari, co-founder of SpeakSee, Bryan, our hard of hearing friend, and Sofia, a curious newcomer. Both Jari and Sofia are wearing the microphones, while Bryan can follow the conversation through lip-reading and reading the text on a small tablet on the table:
ARE YOU INTERESTED?
They will launch their pre-sales today 18th of June. Click here: SpeakSEE PRE-SALES
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