NEWS SPONSORED BY rAge EXPO:

With the goal of serving South Africans with hearing loss, MTN is piloting a national relay service (NRS) which harnesses the power of technology to enable users to make and receive phone calls. Depending on the type of call, an operator will speak, type or use sign language when facilitating calls for or between deaf, hard of hearing, or deafblind South Africans. 

Together with Convo South Africa, a deaf-owned company, the pilot project expands communication access for those who otherwise would not be able to communicate via voice call, audio or video. 

Over the next four months, MTN and Convo will be testing the effectiveness of the service with 100 members of the deaf and hard-of-hearing community. UPDATE: MTN noted the NRS service will be available to the entire South African deaf community after the four month pilot period. 

Users of MTN’s NRS service will be able to independently make calls to friends and family, business services and other organisations without having to rely on someone else to place calls for them. The NRS user will connect with a communications assistant, registered and trained by Convo, who will facilitate the call in real-time. 

“Importantly, contacting critical emergency, fire and medical services is more efficient and far quicker than before for over 2.8 million South African’s living with hearing disabilities or speech impairment and 235 000 South African Sign Language users”, says Cornelia Van Heerden, MTN SA’s chief customer service and operations officer. 

“Our purpose as Africa’s largest telecommunications network is to extend the benefits of a modern connected life to everyone,” says Van Heerden.  

Braam Jordaan, Convo Global’s CEO, is a deaf South African who was awarded the Order of the Baobab by President Ramaphosa in 2019. Following his award, Braam advocated for South Africa to launch an NRS which led to the Independent Communication Authority of South Africa to mandate telecommunications companies to increase telecommunications access for the deaf community, a call Van Heerden says MTN was only happy to answer. 

“As the largest deaf-owned and deaf-led company, Convo has a unique ability in creating solutions for challenges that we have experienced first-hand,” says Jordaan. “Our deaf and hard of hearing employees, who are both consumers of our service and our engineers, work with interpreters in a special partnership that is unmatched. The multi-faceted experiences and perspectives of all our employees help guide Convo’s innovation”. 

“Inspired by South Africa’s potential, at MTN SA we have been dedicated to bridging the digital divide and enabling our customers to be fully connected and realised individuals who can achieve everything they put their minds to, and together with Convo we are excited to be increasing telecommunications access to South Africans with hearing loss,” concludes Van Heerden.