Asha Jadeja, a prominent angel investor from Silicon Valley, announced a grant for ConnectHear, a social enterprise based out of Pakistan.
This is the latest in a series of investments made by Ms. Jadeja in a Pakistani startup and aims to contribute to building the local startup ecosystem and connecting it to the Silicon Valley. Among others, the investments include WrapKar, EBolt, CampusFeed and ClubInternet.
ConnectHear aims to bridge the gap between the mute & deaf and the community at large by setting up a sign language interpretation system. The company is also working on an automated audio-to-PSL (Pakistani Sign Language) application for mobile devices and, over time, aim to become a comprehensive platform that can unlock the world for the marginalised sector of our society.
ConnectHear was incubated at The Nest I/O, which is Pakistan Software House Association’s (P@SHA) incubator for technology startups.
It is led by a group of three brilliant young university students from Karachi. The co-founders include Azima Dhanjee, Areej Al Medinah and Arhum Ishtiaq. Commenting on the funding, Azima says:
We are extrememly grateful for the support offered by Ms. Asha Jadeja. Her grant will help us accelerate the realisation of our vision of creating an inclusive Pakistan for the deaf community.
Based in California, Ms. Jadeja holds tech companies on the bleeding edge of innovation in her portfolio with Google, Uber, PayPal, Pinterest, Weebly, and a 100 others. She expressed her enthusiasm about working with ConnectHear by saying,
The grant from Motwani Foundation is the first such transaction in Pakistan whereby all profits from future exit of this company will be rolled back 100% into charitable causes. I foresee ConnectHear becoming one of the key players in bringing the handicapped population back into the mainstream workforce.
ConnectHear is on-track to completely change the way we treat individuals of different abilities in our society and make a better Pakistan that is more inclusive and empathetic to the needs of the differently-abled.
To learn more about ConnectHear, check out there website.
