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Spotted: Taking part in group conversations can be very difficult for hearing-impaired and deaf people, particularly when multiple people are talking and information can be missed. Jari Hazelback knows this all too well – both of his parents are deaf. So, he decided to develop a solution.

Hazelback and partner Marcel van der Ven founded Speaksee, an app that converts group conversations into accurate written text, using colours to distinguish what’s being said by different speakers. Each participant in the conversation (up to nine people) receives a small microphone with a colour attached. Sensors on the microphones intelligently isolate and capture speech from the right speaker and filter out noise from other sources.

The colours of each microphone are integrated into the transcripts on the screen of the hearing-impaired or deaf person. This makes it easy to follow the conversation, even when different people are speaking at the same time. The system integrates seamlessly with all conferencing platforms and works in 40 languages.

Speaksee recently announced it has raised more than €1 million in funding from impact fund NoorderImpact and a number of angel investors. The funds will be used for international expansion and the further development of its technology to make it applicable in more situations. The company is also working on solutions to make event locations for gatherings such as lectures and conferences accessible to the deaf and hard of hearing, and new applications to improve inclusivity for non-native speakers.

Written By: Lisa Magloff