Sara A Smolley: Making Voice Tech Accessible To Those Who Need It Most

Nov 03, 2021 Posted by: Anushree Nande Israel,  Sara Smolley,  SDG10,  SDG3,  USA

Sara: Voice-driven technologies are increasingly mainstream. For most of us, voice-activation can be convenient and fun. But for millions of people with motor-control challenges and speech disabilities due to developmental disorders, degenerative disease, stroke, and brain injury, the ability to communicate and be understood, to navigate the environment and control devices by voice can be life changing. Many who can potentially benefit from a “voice first” world cannot access these technologies because along with motor control challenges, they do not have standard speech patterns. Standard speech recognition isn’t designed to work for impaired speech (“dysarthria”). Voiceitt’s mission and vision is to make voice technology accessible to everyone.

Yaritza Vargas: Eliminating Language and Cultural Barriers to Improve Healthcare

Nov 02, 2021 Posted by: Jill Jha SDG10,  SDG13,  SDG3,  USA,  Yaritza Vargas

Yaritza: As a first-generation American, I have seen first hand how language and cultural barriers can make life more challenging for millions of folks in immigrant communities. These challenges are especially difficult when it comes to navigating US healthcare. Multilingual families are more likely to involve their younger loved ones in care but there often are not tools to facilitate this care. My co-founder and I are building a digital health company so families like ours can have better care.

Sumesh Nair: An Inclusive Platform Solves Early-Career Needs

Oct 28, 2021 Posted by: Anushree Nande SDG1,  SDG10,  SDG2,  SDG4,  SDG8,  Sumesh Nair,  USA

Sumesh: Early-career professionals and higher-education students are finding it tough to compete in a job market with a traditional degree. After seeing many people in my own circle struggling with this, I informally started helping them get into better jobs. My co-founder, Abhay, also comes from a background where this problem is very acute. We thought we could change the world for the better if the problem could be solved in more creative ways.