CASE-STUDY VERBAVOICE

Headquarters: Munich / Germany
Area of activity: German-speaking countries, later globally
Innovation: Mobile solution to transfer voice into text for hearing-impaired people in almost real time
Beneficiaries: Highly hearing-impaired people (300.000 in GER, 40 million globally)
Clients: Users are hearing-impaired people, Cost units are e.g. Agency of Employment (Agentur für Arbeit), intergration offices and communities
Year of foundation: 2009
Website: www.verbavoice.de

Background and challenge

In Germany around 300,000 people (ca. 40 million globally) are isolated from many areas of our society without visual applications. For many daily situations hearing-impaired persons have a legal entitlement for support. So far sign language- and script interpreters had to travel to each client separately. This is cost intensive and could not be realized in many cases due to the high effort required.

The entrepreneurial solution

VerbaVoice provides a globally unique system for real time recognition and visualization of speech. Hearing-impaired people receive spoken words in a text format via a mobile phone or any other kind of internet connected application. Thereby they can attend for example a meeting at work or follow a lecture at university by reading along. The VerbaVoice service is based on an innovative combination of automatic voice recognition, self developed applications and modern mobile technology. With the help of VerbaVoice daily isolation of hearing-impaired persons is reduced and job-related chances of these people are improved. The company addresses an already existing market (market volume of communication means for hearing-impaired people in Germany 1.2 trillion EUR) with a legally regulated entitlement for the referring support. It replaces existing offers by an efficient and cost saving system. As the first system of its kind it is already approved as means of communication by the Bavarian Ministry for Social Affairs (Bayerisches Sozialministerium) and public integration offices. The cost coverage is provided by legally appointed cost units, e.g. Agency of Employment (Agentur für Arbeit), intergration offices and communities.

This is how VerbaVoice works

The communication partner who hears (e.g. doctor, lecturer, and consultant) speaks to a (pluggable) microphone. With the help of a Smartphone the data is sent to a central server center via a mobile internet connection and from there to a script interpreter. The spoken words are transmitted by the internet connection of the mobile end device to the script interpreter. He “revoices” the heard speech (correct, accentuated repetition). The exclusively on the interpreters voice trained voice recognition system transcripts the spoken words into a text format, particular – meaning changing – mistakes are corrected automatically and synchronically edited by the script interpreter. The edited text is transmitted via an internet connection to the users Smartphone (hearing-impaired person). The user can follow the spoken words almost in real time. The transmittance of the oral language to the script interpreter and the transmittance in return are executed synchronically via the data connection of the mobile end device.

The Social Entrepreneur

During her studies of hearing-impaired persons‘ pedagogy and by her work in the employment training and rehabilitation of hearing-impaired people Michaela Nachtrab realized the high demand and permanent lack of services of fl exible means of communication. During her MBA with focus on social entrepreneurship she developed her fi rst ideas of a concept for innovative means of communication. Due to her contact to CTO Robin Ribback with his profound technical skills (operation of data centers and automatic voice recognition) the concept of VerbaVoice has been developed. In her master thesis she accomplished a stakeholder-analysis based on a comprehensive “Social Business” perspective, which led to the concrete business idea. Since 2002 she worked freelance as a sign language interpreter and since 2009 additionally as project manager for the institute for hearing-impaired people of Bavaria. During this time she established an information-platform that managed how to fi nance communication means, and accumulated unique knowledge for the foundation of VerbaVoice. Due to her past employments she built a network of potential hearing-impaired customers and excellent contacts to various cost units as well as access to the referring legal regulations.

Support of the Social Venture Fund

The total need for capital for the market entry of VerbaVoice in Germany amounts to 750,000 EUR. The capital is provided by the Social Venture Fund as lead-investor (500,000 EUR) and Bayern Kapital (240,000 EUR).