Growing up, Jari Hazelebach was a full-time interpreter. His parents are both deaf, and from a young age he helped them communicate in a world plagued by the problems of 430 million people suffer from disabling hearing loss.
“My parents could lip-read, but their hearing impairment made group conversations almost impossible,” Hazelebach said TNW. Even family gatherings at Christmas were a struggle.
That was the drive Hazelebach To found Speaksee: so that people with hearing loss can carry an interpreter with them anytime and anywhere.
The Speaksee microphone set is linked to a mobile app. Image credit: Speaksee
The young entrepreneur's original goal was clear: he wanted to help his father attend work meetings. But all the speech recognition software available was inadequate. Everything on the market was either too bulky, inaccurate or impractical, says Hazelebach. His mom and dad agreed.
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Eventually, the Erasmus University graduate developed an AI-powered speech recognition software and microphone kit that he believed could do the trick. In 2017 Hazelebach joined forces with systems engineer Marcel van der Ven and founded Speaksee to bring it to market.
How does Speaksee work?
Speaksee's microphone kit is specifically designed to create live captions of group conversations for people with hearing loss. During an interaction, the user hands out individual microphones to group members, who clip the small devices to their collars.
The microphone can be attached to your collar or worn on a lanyard around your neck. Image credit: Speaksee
Each microphone is equipped with beamforming technology that isolates speech from background noise, improving accuracy. The sound is then sent to a charging station. This station not only charges the microphones, but also processes the sound and transmits it to a smartphone app, where it is displayed as transcribed text.
All of this happens in real time, so even those with hearing impairments can hear what is being said. Each group member is color-coded in the app so the reader knows who is saying what. The software also works with video conferences.
The Speaksee app works in over 40 languages. The kit currently supports three microphones, but the company is working on expanding that number to nine to support conversations with larger groups.
Scaling up
Today, Speaksee announced that it 1 million USD in fresh capital to expand and enter new markets. This brings the total raised so far to 4 million USD. The startup is currently operating in the Netherlands but plans to expand to the UK, Denmark, Switzerland, Norway and Germany.
The hardest thing about the expansion, says Hazelebachsecures government support. “Understandably, people don't have to pay for something like this out of their own pocket,” he said. “They expect it to be subsidized.”
Recently, the Dutch Employees' Insurance Agency (UWV) approved reimbursement for Speaksee. This means that the government will cover the cost of the microphone kit for every employee in the Netherlands. The UK has also approved government funding for all Speaksee products through the Access to Work and Disabled Students Allowance funds.
“Government support is a real game changer,” said the founder. “It makes this life-changing technology accessible to many more people.”
Speaksee is already used by several Dutch companies, including KPN, Rabobank and PwC. The Dutch government has also adopted the technology.
Back at home, HazelebachHis parents use Speaksee every day. His father says he couldn't function at work without the app. The conversations at the table have changed forever.
“Christmas dinners have become demonstration days,” laughed Hazelebach“Every year we test new features and the whole family gives us their feedback.
“This year we’ll be testing the kit with nine microphones – I’m looking forward to it.”
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