Romanian live captions and productivity tool for group settings

Congenital sensorineural hearing loss in Romania occurs at a rate of 1 to 3 per 1,000 newborns — consistent with European averages — but access to early diagnosis and intervention has historically been uneven. Research on the etiology of congenital hearing loss in the Romanian population identified significant genetic factors, including variants in the GJB2 gene (connexin 26), which accounts for a substantial proportion of non-syndromic hearing loss cases in the country. An estimated 387,000 people in Romania live with a mild form of deafblindness and over 38,000 with a severe form, reflecting the scale of combined sensory disability in the country.

Disability services in Romania have faced systemic under-resourcing since the economic transition of the 1990s. People with sensory impairments in Romania experience marginalization and social isolation due to a lack of knowledge and accessible services in communities. Romanian Sign Language exists and has a small community of users, but sign language interpretation is essentially unavailable for community social events, family gatherings, or informal settings. Organizations like Sense International have worked to expand support for children with sensory impairments and their families, but reach remains limited outside major urban centres like Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, and Timișoara.

Captio AI captions Romanian conversation in real time on a phone screen — so a deaf family member at a Christmas dinner or a multigenerational gathering in Bucharest, Cluj-Napoca, or Chișinău can follow every story and toast as it is spoken, without relying on someone to relay the conversation.