Bosnian live captions and productivity tool for lectures

There are an estimated 80,000 people with hearing impairments in Bosnia and Herzegovina, yet the country has only 14 certified sign language interpreters — roughly one interpreter for every 5,700 people with hearing loss. The Law on the Use of Sign Language in Bosnia and Herzegovina (2009) formally recognised sign language rights for deaf citizens, establishing that interpreters must be provided for dealings with government bodies and that television broadcasts must be translated into sign language. Despite this legal recognition, implementation has been severely constrained by the absence of trained interpreters.

Sign language is not systematically used in education in Bosnia and Herzegovina. Children who are mainstreamed into hearing schools often receive no sign language interpreter support, and as a result many deaf children are delayed in language development, struggle to acquire curriculum knowledge, and experience social isolation within school environments. The 2009 law established a Commission for Sign Language and mandated interpreter registration, but the supply of registered interpreters has not grown to meet the scale of need — and academic sign language interpretation for university-level content is essentially unavailable.

An estimated 3.3% of the general population of Bosnia and Herzegovina has significant hearing loss, though researchers note that the lack of systematic data collection makes this figure uncertain. For a deaf student at the University of Sarajevo navigating lectures delivered in Ijekavian Bosnian with its four-way pitch accent and h-preserving phonology, Captio AI provides real-time captions in Bosnian — making the lecture hall as accessible as the country's law promises but its 14 interpreters cannot deliver.