(serious music) (serious music continues) - They are only in their twenties, but two Bradley University graduates are young entrepreneurs making waves in the technology field.

Their startup company is We Hear You which creates assistive technologies for people who need more help.

Bethanie Couri is the chief operating officer and she joins us now.

Good to see you, Bethanie.

- Hi Mark.

Thanks for having me.

- Tell me a little bit about, you obviously went to Bradley, but what other connections do you have to Peoria?

- Yeah, so my parents actually grew up here, so they're Peoria natives.

We have a lot of relatives in the area, and then we moved down to Decatur.

So coming to Bradley, it definitely felt like a second home away from home coming back here.

- The big city.

(Bethanie laughs) Well, tell us a a little bit about what you're doing now and we're eventually gonna get into the nuts and bolts of your company, but tell us where you're working now and kind of how you got involved with the company.

- Yeah, so I work as the CEO, or I'm sorry.

Is there- - COO?

- COO.

Yeah.

- Yeah.

So I work as the COO of We Hear You.

I'm the co-founder with Pierre Paul.

And so our company really creates technology for the disabled community.

So we have a couple of products on the market, and we're working on a new development.

So we originated back in 2021 with this segment of the company and we piloted on Bradley's campus, and since then we've just been, you know, moving from there, developing and testing with the community.

- So when you met up with Pierre, at what point was the company?

Had it been around for a while?

Was it still fairly new?

- So actually we met before the company.

So when I was a Bradley student, we were both in residential living, so that's where we met.

And then I graduated with my MBA and he stuck around to finish his master's program in nonprofit leadership.

And so, you know, after I left, he actually had a dream about our first product, which was an American Sign Language translator.

So in his dream, he walked into a McDonald's and on the counter there's this software where he's signing American Sign Language into it, and it's verbalizing it for the person on the other side of the counter, and then that person speaks into it and it signs it back.

So that was our first introduction into, you know, this space of entrepreneurship, into innovation, and into the community.

So he woke up and he called me and he said, "I think we should maybe do something with this."

And I said, "Okay, let's figure out how we're gonna do it."

And so we just started as a project and then over time we turned it into a business and we've been innovating ever since.

- Now in school, did you ever think about being an entrepreneur?

Was that even on your radar?

- Not in this sense.

So I grew up working in a family business.

I worked with all of my sisters in our family restaurant, and I love business, but I always saw myself kind of in a less, you know, exhausting route.

(laughs) But it's been a really good exhausting.

Entrepreneurship is not for the weak of heart.

You have to be bold to really, you know, keep moving in it.

But Pierre brings that energy and that passion and that boldness, and so him as the CEO, he does a really great job of leading the team into that next phase of innovation for us.

- Yeah, and you also need money, that helps- - Yes.

- and you have some more since you recently won a grant.

Tell us about that.

- Yeah, so we applied for the PINK with Purpose Grant back in March, and we went through a couple of different rounds with them, and then in April they notified us that we were selected as one of the top 10 change makers, which was a huge honor being, you know, recognized from the JED Foundation and PINK Victoria's Secret.

And so from there we flew out to New York and we got to spend the weekend with some really great people from both sides of those organizations.

And they're just providing ongoing mentorship now in addition to the grant.

So it's been a really cool experience.

- How important is that money to what you and Pierre are trying to do?

- It's huge.

$25,000 to a startup company who has, you know, research and development costs and labor costs, $25,000 definitely helps us to move into that next phase a lot more seamlessly and it allows us to focus on some of the more important aspects as opposed to figuring out financially, how do we afford this?

We're able to really get, you know, in touch with where are we testing it, where are we getting our feedback from the community, how are we getting this out to the community?

So it allows us to focus on some of those more important aspects - Besides Pierre's dream that he had, which is a fantastic story, hopefully they'll make a movie about it someday.

Did you guys know right away that you wanted to come up with products that were gonna help people who may be physically challenged, things like that?

- I think as we started getting into the space, it became apparent that that's where we were supposed to be.

Pierre grew up, he moved here from Guyana, and so when he moved here, he definitely felt like an outsider.

And so that's where a lot of the backstory comes from, is when he had that dream, it really was him feeling that energy of someone being on the outside of the status quo.

And so when we started venturing into this realm, it just felt right that that's where our passions were leading us.

So being able to help this community, I don't think either of us would've, you know, predicted it when we were both in college.

But I think as we started to develop and as we started to dive into the research and into, you know, the customer feedback from them of what they're looking for and what would make their lives so much easier, it became very evident that this is something that we wanna spend our time, talent, and energy on.

- Yeah, we're gonna get into these specific products because I'm shocked that nobody has has come up with with these ideas yet, they're really great.

But you talked about entrepreneurship not being for the weak at heart.

What kind of hurdles have you and Pierre faced as you go through this journey?

- Yeah, so I think funding is always one of those hurdles that any company is gonna face, especially as you're trying to bring on members of the team and you're trying to figure out how to financially continue moving forward as a company, so I think that's an obvious one, but I think there are other ones that you don't necessarily think about until you're in the space with manufacturing.

So delays of manufacturing or working with different partners and finding the right fits.

COVID was a huge challenge back in the day with the sign language translator.

So I think there's always those hurdles, but I think it, for us, we viewed them as growth opportunities because when we pushed through, we learn something different that we wouldn't have learned otherwise.

- Yeah, I was gonna ask you about COVID and it sounds like you probably ran into the same problems that the rest of the world did with the supply chain and everything else.

- Yeah, so luckily at that time we were really just developing our software, but how it affected us is the team of data scientists that we were working with to gather data and to code the sign language translator.

Everyone was dispersed, you know, at that time.

So we weren't able to get into the same room and bounce ideas off of each other like we were before.

So it really led us to that virtual work setting, which, you know, we made the most of, but at the time it was kind of earth quaking as it was for most of, you know, everybody else in the world.

- Your company, again, is We Hear You, or WHY, what kind of help do you and Pierre have now in terms of marketing and research and development and things like that?

- Yeah, so we've been slowly building our team.

So we have an awesome, you know, team of members who really focus on different, you know, specialties.

So Jamal Stevenson focuses on the sales side, Alejandra Vadillo is our social media side.

We have some manufacturers, ME, EE help there, and it's been a lot nicer being able to bring on people who, you know, experience, who have those expertise instead of us trying to figure out how to learn everything.

- Sure.

- Yeah.

- Let's talk about some of the products you guys are working on.

The grant that you got was for the Hero Door Opener, is that right?

- Yes.

- Okay.

Go ahead and take a drink, doll.

- Yeah.

Thank you.

- So the Hero Door Opener is a portable door hinge, if I understand this right, that makes regular doors ADA compliant.

Tell us a little bit how that works.

- Yeah, so a little bit of background for you.

So with the current systems, you really have very limited options.

If you're a business owner or if you are, you know, an academic institution and you're looking to make your buildings more accessible, you have to hardwire into the building, you have to pay the installation fees for someone to come in and fully rewire.

It's bulky and it's not something that you can take with you if you, you know, are a small business and you move locations, or if you're a homeowner and you move, it's a lot harder to maneuver those pieces.

And so what we're trying to pave the way for is a more cost-effective solution where, you know, individuals can afford to have multiple in their homes or multiple in their small business, and one that can be easily installed, so plugged into a wall if that's the intended use, or hardwired, if that's better.

So a little bit more versatility because this space hasn't really seen as many updates as, you know, other technology has been over time.

And so being able to really innovate a new solution for, you know, small business owners or homeowners, really, that's the primary goal with the Hero Door Opener is providing a new solution.

- And with something like this, have you been pitching maybe to other companies to help you out or sell the technology?

How does that work?

- Yeah, so actually earlier this year in November, we were awarded an Arch Grant from the city of St. Louis.

So they awarded We Hear You $100,000 to come down there and, you know, work in St. Louis and build and grow down in St. Louis.

And so since moving there, we've made some really good partnerships with different groups, both in the disability space and both in the manufacturing space.

And so we're still forging partnerships and figuring out what those look like.

But as you know, entrepreneurs, your network is oftentimes your biggest asset.

And so yeah, being in St. Louis, we've been able to leverage some really good connections that have helped us there.

- Have you run into the problem that I think a lot of entrepreneurs run into, especially when they bring outside people in, you may have one vision and the people helping you may have another.

Do you ever, I don't wanna say butt heads, but do you ever butt heads with people and, you know, maybe they wanna make changes that you don't wanna make?

- I would say a little bit, but I think, I think it's all about, you know, being able to define your mission, define your vision, and be able to articulate it to your team in a way that they can get on board with.

I think Pierre and I, as the co-founders, are really on the same page with, you know, what we are hoping for the future of We Hear You and what our core values are.

And I think being able to bring on our team and have them in that vision and mission, operating already there, I think that's super important.

I think we've seen it a little bit externally of early on, when we were looking at what a funding round would look like and we were looking at, you know, venture capitalists, being a social entrepreneur, kind of butts heads with some of the core principles of, you know, of investment.

So that's something that we learned early on.

But luckily with team members, majority of the team members who, especially who have stuck with us throughout the long journey of a startup, they've definitely been on board with all of the things that, you know, we value.

- That's good.

Another one of the things that you're working on is something called Push.

Tell us about that.

- Yeah, so that was the idea that Pierre really developed in 2021 was when it came to him then in Bradley's campus.

So the idea behind Push is he identified this problem of for, you know, wheelchair users or for anyone who has mobility exceptionality, getting up to that ADA door button, pressing it, and then getting out of the way of the door and through the door before it starts to close can be, you know, really challenging.

And at that time, he was in a diversity and inclusion course through Cornell and he had been on a podcast for, now a team member, Carden Wyckoff, but then just a classmate.

And she has a really great podcast called "Freewheeling with Carden," and she brought him on as a guest speaker, and afterwards he said, "Carden, I had this idea and I wanna, you know, get your feedback on it as someone who is a part of the disabled community.

Would a button that you have attached to your wheelchair be beneficial to open doors for you instead of that ADA door button?"

And she took a moment and she said, "Pierre, there's nothing more embarrassing than being an adult pinned between the door and the frame of the door and not being able to help yourself to get out of that situation."

And so after we got that affirmation, we just started, you know, prototyping and getting the the user feedback from the community.

We prototyped it on Bradley's campus with a couple of engineers who, Brandon and Ben, were amazing.

They were wise and they are wise beyond their years.

And then we took it to Chicago to manufacture, and Bradley University adopted it as the first adopters on campus.

And since then, we've been kind of redeveloping what that looks like, the physical fob, and really trying to optimize it so it's the best version it can be for the community.

And we also got some feedback saying, you know, "One of our team members only has mobility from the neck up.

And so she uses the back of her head to maneuver her wheelchair."

And so we were originally trying to fit it to the back of her head so she could, the headrest, so she could press it there.

But then she said something that would be better would be, you know, if it could be voice activated from my phone where I can, you know, use my phone as a voice activation.

So since then we've been developing the Push app, which is actually getting ready to go live here soon.

So that will allow users to open the doors from their phones, whether they're pushing the button or whether they're using voice activation to open doors.

So the main goal with all of these different iterations is to meet the end user where they need to be met, where, you know, they specifically are, because what we've found with innovation so far is it's done from such an able-bodied centric perspective and not a user, you know, perspective.

So it's not done with that end user in mind, hence that button that's on the wall that isn't always in the most convenient place for individuals.

So Push, over time, has, you know, been evolving, but we're really excited to see where it goes from here.

- Yeah, that is exciting.

And I'm sure that when, you know, engineers design this stuff, again, they're thinking about the cheapest way to do it, you know, when they have the big button on the wall and not really thinking how it's gonna affect people.

So that's a great idea.

Now let's go back to the dream that Pierre had, the two-way sign language translation software.

- Sure.

- I mean, that seems so brilliant that somebody should have thought about it before.

Tell us again how that works and who you hope to help with that.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So, especially back when we were starting, it was a very novel concept because gesture recognition really hadn't been developed very much to that point.

Since then, we've seen a little bit more, you know, progress in this space, which has been amazing.

'Cause this community, you know, we have Google Translate for a million different languages, but there's such a communication barrier between the hearing community and the deaf community.

And so the goal of this software was to really be able to integrate this community however they want to be integrated, whether it's in public spaces, employment opportunities, et cetera.

This would just be an added accommodation.

And so the way that it works is we've been building a neural network with adding in gesture recognition and some other very, you know, complicated technology language that I don't wanna mess up.

But we have an amazing data scientist on our team, our chief tech officer, Adam Byerly, Dr. Adam Byerly from Bradley, and he's been doing an amazing job, you know, leading that charge.

So we originally started with just finger spelling, so just the alphabet.

And we did some testing in Peoria at the Spot Coffee Shop before we took it out and really started adding in full gesture recognition, which is a lot more complicated because it's not, you know, "A, B," it's, you know, "coffee," it's movement, it's videos.

And so being able to pull that out and start integrating and pushing further into those bounds was a very cool experience because we hadn't seen it done before.

And so that's still ongoing.

It's still, you know, our team is still, our separate team is still, you know, moving that direction and it's really exciting to see the different opportunities that other businesses, you know, want to implement ASL.

- So gimme a real life example, kind of act out, if you will, how this would work.

- Yeah, absolutely.

So let's use the coffee shop for example.

So an individual whose deaf walks into the coffee shop and they see this tablet on the screen or on the counter, and they walk up to the screen, there's a green box.

So once they enter frame, it'll light up green letting them know that, you know, they're in the right element there.

And so once it's good to go, they'll start signing their order and it could be either, you know, text on the screen or verbally for the counter associate on the other end.

So they would sign their order into the tablet, it would vocalize it, let's say, for the associate on the other end, and then they would be able to speak into the tablet or type into it and it would be able to translate it back into American Sign Language with an individual on the screen.

So it's multifaceted.

It has a lot of key pieces like, you know, ongoing working, but that's what we've been developing and it's been a really cool journey so far.

- So it's basically a camera that is pointed in the iPad or whatever it is pointed at the deaf individual, they do the sign language, another camera is pointed at the barista or whoever's employed, and that's how, that's really cool.

- Thank you.

Yeah.

- That's great.

So where are you at in terms of that and rolling that out?

Is this some something where you have to convince a business, "Hey, you gotta buy some hardware for this," and that's kind of how it works?

- Yeah, so right now we've done some really cool pilot projects with different companies hoping that those, you know, move into the more full-scale projects.

But since we're still really in that development stage, we haven't rolled it out commercially fully yet.

I think once we roll it out commercially, what that could look like is, they license it for X amount each month and they just have this extra accommodation, you know, in their establishment.

The cool thing with the Americans with Disabilities Act is that if you make less than a million dollars a year, there's this tax credit where you can get up to 50% back on what you spend to make your business more accessible.

And so for small businesses, that really does help to, you know, add some of these added costs that should be, you know, kind of bare minimum, but end up being an after thought because, you know, they're just extra things to add on the counter.

So that's the goal is making it more of a licensing type of pricing model and working with businesses to accommodate their patrons.

- You have any other dreams?

Any other things in the pipeline or are you just focused basically right now on these three different products?

- Yeah, we're very focused on these three products.

I think years down the road, we might get bold again and bring more to life, but all of our energy really is, you know, funneled into making sure that we're providing the best quality products for these two different communities as possible.

- You talked a little bit earlier about the grant givers and how not only are they giving you money, but advice and how important is it to be able to get advice from other people who have either done what you're trying to do or are have just been successful in other business ventures.

- Yeah, absolutely.

I think as, you know, anybody knows, financial help is always, you know, helpful and it's always beneficial.

But I think as an entrepreneurs, what we've learned has been that, you know, we're young, we're new in this space, and so some of the most beneficial assets we can go out and search for are pieces of wisdom from people who have, you know, had more years than us or who don't have more years than us, but have different experiences.

So the network that we're building and the mentors that we've created over time has been so beneficial to the development of the company.

We would not be where we are today without the mentors that have led us here.

So I think to be able to have, yes, the funding, which is amazing, but then on top of that, have the ongoing guidance from this amazing organization who does such great work for, you know, youth mental health.

It's just unbelievably, you know, breathtaking.

You just, I could have never gathered that this would be where we are, so.

- You mentioned earlier, your friend who said it's really embarrassing to be stuck in an automated door like that, I'm sure that's gotta motivate you a little bit.

What other things motivate you and Pierre to get these products up and running?

- Yeah, I think every, you know, every piece of feedback we've gathered from the community so far has been that motivating factor.

On the days where it's hard, we remember those words of encouragement of how these, you know, the, "Thank you for innovating in this space when others haven't taken the time to do so," or a "Thank you for thinking to create something that will make the quality of life better for me."

"Thank you for creating for the next generation to come."

It's not about the thank yous, but it's about making a better life for individuals who deserve it at the end of the day.

And so being able to connect with this community through different expos, we're gonna be at the disability expo in Chicago this weekend, and being able to, you know, get that feedback from them and hear that this is something that would really make their life so much easier.

It's very motivating.

You couldn't ask for more at that point.

- And I think with products like this, I mean, this is something that people around the world could potentially use and, you know, so you've got a lot of people I think who would be interested in that.

Where do you go from here?

You mentioned this weekend, you've got, you're thinking Chicago, so that'll be good, you'll meet more people, maybe get some more eyeballs on the products.

What is your immediately, what is your kind of, your goal in terms of getting these products up and running?

- Yeah, so right now we're really focused in on that manufacturing phase.

Just, you know, the time, the energy of making sure that it works, making sure it works the way we want it to, and then getting it into the hands of those, you know, end users who, we want it to work the way that they want it to.

So I think that's where our energy will be for a little while.

And then from there, it's just connecting with different partners who can get it into the hands of those who it'll benefit.

So we work, you know, very closely with some partners in Peoria.

EP!C has been an awesome partner for us.

And so being able to, you know, donate some products there and allow them to just give us feedback of what they like and what they don't like, it's been so helpful for us as we continue to develop for the community.

So yeah, in summary, we're really focused in on that development phase right now, but I think once we have those products ready to roll out, it's gonna be figuring out how to get it into the hands of those that we wanna, you know, give it to.

- Yeah.

Then you get to worry about mass production and- - All that good stuff.

- All that fun stuff.

- Yep.

- Well it's very exciting.

How can people find out more about your products and your company?

- Yeah, so we're on just about every social media.

We post a lot on our Instagram and Facebook.

And then we also have our website, wehearyouasl.com, so.

- Should people search out, We Hear You, as opposed to WHY?

- Yes.

Yeah.

- Okay.

So We Hear You.

- ASL.

- Maybe Peoria, ASL.

Yeah, that'll get you to your company.

Well please let us know, keep us updated on how things progress.

We're excited to see how this goes for you and Pierre and everybody else that's working at your company.

And I'm sure a lot of people out there will be excited to use the products once they're available to use.

- Yeah.

Well thank you so much for having me.

- All right, Bethanie Couri, the COO of We Hear You, or WHY, we appreciate you coming in.

- Thank you.

- And that is our time for right now.

We thank you for joining us.

Don't go anywhere.

"You Gotta See This!"

with Phil and Julie is coming up next.

You can check us out on social media and anytime at wtvp.org.

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