Salita Connect

Receiving and giving care is magnitudes harder if the parties involved don't speak the same language. Finding and hiring an interpreter to bridge the gap is critical. Though what about all the inbetweens?

Example-1:

• When a patient comes up to you and says, "Jeg føler meg kvalm"
• What do you do?

Example-2:

• When your ambulance arrives at a patients location, and they only speak Somali.
• What do you do?

Salita Connect provides a phrase list in multiple languages with the most commonly used phrases in a medical setting to triage the seriousness of any patients condition.

We use professional translators for the translations, and professional interpreters for voice acting the recorded audio clips in various dialects.

We also provide a mechanism to escalate to an interpreter, and our Interpretation business matches the highest certified interpreter suitable for your requirements in real-time. Our interpreter booking system is not an innovation, but our use of phrase-based multi-lingual communication is.

The technology for the end user is simple - it's an mp3 player with a built in recommendation engine, helping you find the next possible phrase in a conversation - so you can get the answers you need to decide whether the case requires escalation. In addition to various features that make it easier for patients and medical personnel to communicate.

The technology for administrators, translators, and interpreters is a database of phrases, translations, pictohrams, audio clips, and dashboards including statistics and usage information.

The solution targets people that live in an area where their spoken languages are not the primary language of the local people.

This includes, but is not limited to:

• Refugees
• Immigrants
• Expats
• Tourists
• Business travellers

Our team runs a 27 year of Interpretation and Translation services company in Norway. We hold contracts with the Norwegian National Police, the Norwegian National Health trusts, and provide interpretation and translation services to over two hundred municipalities in Norway.

We process over 10,000 booked orders per month. We work with over 5000 registered interpreters every month. We have national translation contracts with the Norwegian Welfare department, and more government offices.

Our Interpretation and Translation business is rock solid with multi-year contracts. Our new product, Salita Connect, bridges the gap where our existing services are either too expensive or difficult to procure.

The team consists of people from India, Germany, Norway, Iran, Eritrea, Portugal, Ukraine, Serbia, Finland, and the UK. We have all been touched by language, and the need for it in a new country where our primary language was not the local language.

We worked with our customers in the medical sector to understand their needs, and have worked with them through the design, prototype, implementation, and product upgrade phases.

Financial

• We have funds to continue building the product
• Translation and audio recording of the text has a cost, and we could translate many more phrases if we had additional funds - but our product will have a base list of phrases in 25 languages
• Funding is not a core concern at the moment (year-1), but necessary to expand the product for global use.

Technical

• The technology used is quite simple, and while it could be optimized, development resources are not a core concern at the moment
• However, we need feedback. We need the product in real hands around the world, so we can add/adjust/remove functionality that requires it.

Legal

• Norwegian law is pragmatic and getting sued is not a concern
• Outside of Norway, we need to protect ourselves and get a stronger understanding of legal issues we could face by providing an open phrase-to-translated-audio service

Cultural

• We want to set up a pilot program on a per-hospital basis with a set schedule and follow up program where the product can be tested locally with N patients to help us understand the truly local needs for such a product.
• The technology today suits the Norwegian market quite well, and some product updates are expected in the coming months; including a mobile application for Android and iOS.

Market barriers

• Our company, for 27 years, has served within the Norwegian borders, or for the Norwegian language for the rest of the world.
• This will be our first attempt at a product that reaches the rest of the world, where it's likely that we too don't speak the same language.
• We need help to understand local markets via pilot programmes, to ensure that our product best serves local needs.

Nurses and Patients don't have the authority to spend money on an interpreter. Google Translate isn't medically ready or trustable when it comes to a medical diagnosis.

Family members aren't always around, especially with covid related lockdowns at hospitals.

So, who does the talking?

Premium product

• Hospital sector customers that pay
• Hospital sector involvement in creating new phrases, pictograms, and functionality
• Certified translators for all phrase translations
• Certified interpreters, as voice actors, for all recordings

Global product

• Free service open to everyone
• Wikipedia-like phrase book where (approved) volunteers can provide new content
• Wikipedia-like recorder where (approved) volunteers can lend their voice

In the next 1 year:

We need paying customers

In the next 2 years:

We need a global volunteer base providing content for free use worldwide

We may need funding for servers, hosting, and community management

In the next 5 years:

We want to use our database of global voices and phrases to build a real time voice translation AI that recognises the most often spoken phrases.

We measure:

• Number of conversations
• Depth of phrases used
• Number of conversations escalated to a real interpreter

Our partners can measure:

• Gender data
• Age
• Refugee/immigrant/expat status

Goal 3: Ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages

We do not save any personal information, and thus have no access to the clients age - however, the older population is generally at a disadvantage in medical emergencies where communicating their condition is critical to receiving emergency care.

Goal 5: Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls

We do not save any personal information, and thus have no access to gender data - however, women face a larger langauge barrier than most as discussing medical issues via a family member or interpreter is not ideal.

Goal 10: Reduce inequality within and among countries

We do not save any personal information, and thus have no access to refugee/immigrant/expat status - however, foriegners who are not able to communicate in the local language face the greatest challenge in new communities.

We want to put the application in the hands of the people most affected by the problem.

In terms of work hours:

• A nurse has X hours a day to care for Y patients
• A patient has 24 hours a day to care for themselves

The ability to speak and be understood at any time of day or night is the game changer.

It's a web based mp3 player with a catalogue of multi-lingual phrases attached to a recommendation engine and pictograms.

Our team includes people from several countries (India, Norway, Germany, UK, Iran, Finland, Eritrea, Ukraine, and more), and we have worked with translations/interpreters from over 25 countries to put the app together.

We will continue to work with translations/interpreters from the world over to add more phrases, languages, and audio recordings to the platform.

We welcome and look to include a diverse group of people to our core team, content team, and global base of paid and volunteer translators/interpreters.

Premium app

• We will provide a premium app under a SaaS agreement to large businesses with an SLA
• We will charge a subscription fee for access to personalized functionality
• We will provide a payable 'escalate to interpreter' service, where we connect the health personnel to a real interpreter when the need arises
• We will provide a payable service to add phrases and get them translated/recording by professionals for each local market

Free app

• We will provide the app for free worldwide
• The free application will (in the future) include volunteer moderated/generated content

Our existing interpretation and translation business earns enough to fund the core project.

In order to reach our goal of a global wikipedia-like phrase book in multiple languages with audio recordings from around the world, we will need paying customers for the premium version to fund further development.

We will charge a SaaS fee to hospitals on a per conversation or per patient or per employee or per department or per hospital. The exact metrics depend on the target country, and local needs for such a product.

Our existing interpretation and translation business earns enough to fund the core project for year-1

We need funding to expand the product for global use, and build a global community of volunteers.