Date started: December 2015
Website: signly.co
Twitter: @SignlyApp
Location: National

Signly is an award-winning app transforming the experience of visits to museums, train stations and the high street bank for deaf users of sign language.

The user’s smartphone instantly displays pre-recorded sign language videos when pointed at information text or barcodes, revealing content in a format suitable to the user’s needs.

Signly was conceived by Mark Applin with Deafax and first trialled at The Roald Dahl museum. Children and adults who tested the free-to-download app were keen to develop more, spotting its massive potential for increasing accessibility in health, education, retail and transport.

A vital partnership with Lloyds Bank, for a customer-facing trial, empowered deaf people to have all the information necessary to make important financial decisions. Network Rail have now Signly-enable all their level-crossing safety campaigns and the technology is highly praised for its inclusivity: “The living definition of what equal access means in practice”.

Next in the developers’ sights is a big-tech partner to develop a complete cognitive toolkit, in what would be a global step-change for inclusive tech.