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Windsor entrepreneur Samar Mansour hopes his transcription app can break down barriers for people with hearing loss.
The 31-year-old was recently accepted to show off his app, BeAware Deaf Assistant, at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this month. This show brings together the latest innovations and innovators.
The main purpose of this app is to transcribe what’s going on in real time, allowing people with hearing loss to read the screen and understand what’s being said. This feature can be used without internet and transcribes multiple languages.
There’s also a setting where the app detects loud noises around you and flashes your phone’s light to let you know there’s a loud noise.
This is a screenshot of the app “BeAware Deaf Assistant”. (BeAware Deaf Assistant app)
Both uses are free for people to use.
“People who are unemployed because of a disability have a disability that we can enable. If we provide a solution, we can essentially bring them back into the workforce. ” he said.
“It was a truly satisfying trip.”
Mansour, who was born in Saudi Arabia, attended university in the United States and moved to Windsor four years ago. He is involved in app development and brainstormed an idea with some friends in 2021. The app was released the following year.
“Many of us have family members who are deaf or hard of hearing, many of us have friends in the deaf community, and we had previously taken sign language classes, so we had a lot of friends close to the community. essentially helped advance the research,” Mansour said.
Last year, Mansour also added a meeting captioning feature through which he charges institutions and companies who use the app for lectures and large events.
This allows hearing-impaired people in the audience to scan the QR code and get a transcription of what is being said directly on their mobile phone.
Most recently, he said, Michigan State University used his app for its graduation ceremony.
He says this feature of the app is what sets it apart from other transcription services.
Mansour said 13,000 people around the world were using the app as of last month.
A few months ago, the company also launched Health scribe, which can be used to transcribe text for people in the medical field.
Each feature of his app can also provide translation into another language if required.
Mansour said he also attended the following events at CES: shark tank They are making casting calls and expect to know whether they will be on the show by the end of January.
Technological advances and accessibility
David Lepofsky, chair of the Disability Ontarians Accessibility Act Alliance, isn’t familiar with BeAware, but he uses technology to help him get through his daily life as a visually impaired person.
Great advances in technology have made daily life more accessible for people with disabilities, he says.
David Lepofsky chairs the Accessibility Law Alliance for Ontarians with Disabilities. (Paul Smith/CBC)
He remembers using one of the first devices used to scan books and read them out loud in the early 1980s. According to him, it cost him $50,000. However, he currently uses his iPhone with free apps installed.
“The experience of living with vision loss has been completely redefined by emerging technologies throughout my life,” says Lepofsky, who is also a visiting research professor of disability rights at Western University School of Law.
But Lepofsky said technology can also create barriers, and entrepreneurs need to keep that in mind.
“So if someone releases a new iPhone app or web application, it’s not designed to work with or interact with our access technology, and it’s not designed to work with screen readers on mobile phones or on websites. “It’s not what it was designed to be. There’s a new set of barriers and things are actually getting worse,” he said.
Lepofsky said the solution is to “legislate and enforce that new technologies must effectively address the needs of all users, including those with disabilities.”
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