Pedius

Pedius is a communication service that enables the Deaf and Hard of Hearing to make phone calls, without a third party intermediary, 24/7. We are on a mission to make calling and communications more accessible and inclusive. Users type or speak their message into their device and Pedius sends it to the contact they choose, using either the user’s own voice or an automated voice. In real-time the user reads the written translation of the recipient’s answer, thanks to Pedius’ advanced voice recognition and speech synthesis technologies. Pedius has also developed solutions for larger companies: Accessible Call Centers for Deaf customers, and Work Inclusion Solution, to make the workplace accessible and inclusion for Deaf employees, supporting their full participation in day to day activities.

Most recently, Pedius has launched its subtitling service especially used for events, meetings, and lessons or mandatory courses.

Globally there are about 466 million people who have a ‘disabling’ hearing loss, that is over 5% of the entire population and this number is expected to continue increasing. The difficulties encountered during their daily private life and communication obstacles on work situations are numerous with high social impact and costs. Many services are only accessible by phone and this very often limits the freedom for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing. There is also a large communication gap that greatly diminishes chances of accessibility and meaningful inclusion.

The social impact of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing is quite high, especially in industrialized countries. In fact, people with this disability often do not have an adequate education which is followed by a high unemployment rate, thus representing a social emergency. In fact, Deaf students are generally excluded from a majority of daily lessons for reasons such as: classrooms not being equipped, a lack of technological aids, and/or communication tools.

Pedius stands as the only solution capable of guaranteeing total autonomy and privacy, allowing effective and equal communication. 

The aim of our project is to overcome these barriers by providing a service of subtitling and transcription, guaranteeing consistent and complete access to lessons. In a classroom, the professor utilizes a microphone that automatically sends the audio to the device, and utilizes the pre-installed Pedius application to transcribe the audio into real-time text for the student. 

In a classroom, the professor utilizes a microphone that automatically sends the audio to the device, and utilizes the pre-installed Pedius application to transcribe the audio into real-time text for the student.

For e-learning, Pedius integrates subtitles during online lectures, utilizing the same functionalities even in separate locations.

Students with disabilities are those who reported that they had one or more of the following conditions: blindness or visual impairment that cannot be corrected by wearing glasses; hearing impairment (e.g., deaf or hard of hearing); orthopedic or mobility impairment; speech or language impairment; learning, mental, emotional, or psychiatric condition (e.g., serious learning disability, depression, ADD, or ADHD); or other health impairment or problem.

The target audience of our solution concerns first of all students with deafness and other learning-related disabilities, such as ADHD/ADD or with autistic spectrum, dyslexia, etc. To date, these children find themselves in most cases excluded from classes due to inadequate classrooms and lack of tools that facilitate their inclinations and ways of learning.

An adequate education can help people with disabilities get increased access to employment, health and other services, and develop a better awareness of their rights. 

In addition to this, the solution proposed by Pedius can also be used by foreign students and in e-learning situations.

With the explosion of the pandemic, the school system was faced with a challenge: to change the way of doing school, to interact with students and teachers but, above all, to deal with and interface with students affected by communication and learning disabilities.
Even before COVID, these young students were often excluded from most lessons and communication processes.
In line with the challenge proposed by MIT Solve, Pedius proposes an innovative and technological solution capable of addressing this issue, providing an inclusive tool for students with disabilities, ensuring them fair and equal access to classes and the new context of "virtual classrooms".

Pedius was founded in 2013 and to date has 35,000 users in 14 countries around the world. In the last two years Pedius has developed the new solution for school accessibility for students with disabilities and started first partnerships with some educational institutions and universities. To date, it is growing and trying to launch this new product in new markets.

Regarding the solution proposed by Pedius on accessible education, this new product is being tested in Italy (in some training institutes) and in Hong Kong at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

13

The team consists of 13 people from different continents with diverse yet complementary skills ranging from technical to commercial and communication. With the addition of new figures from key countries for the development and internationalization of the project, the team is ready to enter new markets and expand its business customer base.