People who are deaf can make and take calls with locally developed CallBridge app

For most of his life, 46-year-old Alfred Yeo has ignored all calls made to his phone.

- Sarah Koh

CallBridge team members (from far left) Wayne Tan, Randall Koh Peng Siang, Tan Yeo Shi Lee, Cody Tan De Xian and Jocelyn Tan Xin Yee. Their app transcribes the spoken words of incoming callers, which users will first be alerted to via a push notification on their phones.

(GAVIN FOO)

As he has been deaf since the age of five, even straightforward interactions with most people, such as calls with bank officers, are not possible for him.

"Even government officers, forgetting that we are deaf, would call us," said the senior payroll associate in an email interview with The Sunday Times.

This frustration is now a thing of the past for Mr Yeo, who can make and take calls using a locally developed app named CallBridge. While there are other apps with similar functions, including Nagish and InnoCaption, they are not available for use in Singapore.

CallBridge uses speech-to-text technology to transcribe the spoken words of incoming callers, which users will first be alerted to via a push notification.

Deaf users respond by typing their message, which will be converted into speech for the caller on the other end.

When app users make a call, recipients will first be informed that they are communicating with a deaf person using CallBridge, and they should expect a longer response time.

CallBridge was developed during the inaugural Sparks x Build for Good Community Hackathon in June, organised by the People's Association and Open Government Products (OGP) to encourage the youth to come up with tech solutions to tackle community challenges.