Lisnen

Founder: Eyra Abraham 

Website: www.lisnen.com (external link)  

Lisnen is for the Deaf and hard of hearing who are dissatisfied with the limitations of traditional alerting devices. Lisnen is developing a mobile app that is a sound recognition alerting device and allows our users to receive alerts to critical sounds like fire alarms, sirens and more. Lisnen is creating a new category of alerting devices using the latest in AI and bringing it into the 21st century. Unlike hardware devices that already exist in the market, Lisnen will produce a solution that is transportable and accessible anywhere by using a mobile phone. We are empowering the Deaf and hard of hearing community who want to partake in society on equal terms and not let obstacles stop them from achieving what they want.

Lisnen started with the founder, Eyra who has a severe-profound hearing loss. She wants to address the anxiety and lack of safety associated with missing out when you can’t hear all the time. The problem came to her awareness from an incident that left her distraught after she slept through a fire drill after removing her hearing aid for bed. While she was safe and nothing happened, she knew at that moment she needed a solution. But what she found were many impractical solutions and high upfront cost that caused her to gamble her life each and every night. Inconsistent laws protecting the Deaf and hard of hearing, stationary visual alarm products that only works if it’s in the line of sight, or the high cost of owning the devices are many of the issues people with a hearing loss face. However, as AI and voice recognition improves, this is now the time to bring a better solution into the market.