‘Uber for deaf people’ winner of the 2016 University Startup World Cup

Isara runs an Uber-style app which is an innovative platform and community center for the hearing impaired, consisting of an application that offers teaching of sign language, on-demand online interpreting, and a crowdsourced tool to make deaf-friendly subtitles. People can access the sign language courses, and in return, assist the hearing impaired by creating deaf-friendly subtitles and online videos.

The award came as a complete surprise to the group. “We definitely would never have thought that we would win the competition! We’re really grateful for winning, but we hope this could be a way for us to communicate our pursuit in shifting the paradigm of sign language and empowering the deaf community,” commented Irvan from the Isara team.

The award is part of an annual event running for a full week organized by Venture Cup, a Danish non-profit organization with long-term experience in hosting competitions for university startups. The aim is to promote networking and to bring together entrepreneurs, investors, and business people from around the world. Some 50 university startups were competing this year. A few winners in other categories include NARA Space Technology from South Korea (Industry & Robotics), Nowi from the Netherlands (Sharing Economy & IoT), and Klenergy from Spain/Denmark (Greentech).

Source: Business Insider Nordic