Pedius: the app that allows deaf people to make phone calls

PEDIUS

Lorenzo Di Ciaccio is a young Roman with a degree in Computer Engineering. One day, on the news, he hears the story of Gabriele Serpi, a young man who was stranded on the street for hours due to a car breakdown because he couldn't make a phone call: he's deaf. And one thing led to another. from an episode a very good idea Don't waste, and from an idea a solution for thousands of disadvantaged people.

An expert in audio thanks to his studies, full of inventiveness and ready to create a business that can do good, Lorenzo di Ciaccio thus founded Pedius, the smartphone application that allows deaf people to make phone calls, nominated for the 2017 Non sprecare Award. In Italy, there are approximately 70.000 deaf people, so the service has a very large potential user base.

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PEDIUS APP FOR DEAF CALLS

The app is available on Android and Apple devices in 10 different countries (Italy, the United Kingdom, Ireland, France, Spain, Canada, the United States, Brazil, New Zealand, and Australia) and in several languages, and currently has approximately 15,000 users. Pedius's commercial offerings reflect the principle of solidarity on which this service was born. All calls to emergency numbers are free. The application offers 20 minutes of free calls per month to all users.This should ensure that stories like Gabriele Serpi's never happen again.

But how does the service work? Pedius uses a speech recognition and synthesis systemWhen the deaf user calls, they type on the display as in a normal chat and the text is spoken by an artificial voice. When the person on the other end of the phone speaks, their response is transformed into text on the device's display.Pedius is a beautiful example of social entrepreneurship that uses modern technology to include in society those segments of the population that would otherwise risk being left on the margins of our increasingly social world.

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PEDIUS LORENZO DI CIACCIO

Since official recognition is important, especially in the volatile and fast-paced world of startups, it's worth noting that Pedius has already won the University of California, Berkeley's Global Social Venture Competition, a competition that promotes and rewards innovative projects that aim for social inclusion and environmental sustainability. Since then, the app has only grown and is meeting every challenge with flying colors.

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