From a personal challenge to more accessible communication
What happens when an important conversation is taking place, but not everyone can follow what is being said?
That question has been at the heart of Speaksee from the very beginning.
In August 2026, Rabobank published an article about Speaksee, the story behind its technology and the development of both the Speaksee Microphone Kit and Soundshape.
The original article is in Dutch. But the story behind it goes far beyond language or borders. It is about a simple challenge: how can technology help more people understand and participate in spoken communication?
It started with a personal experience
Speaksee co-founder Jari Hazelebach grew up with two parents who were born deaf.
Although the people around them tried to take this into account, Jari saw first-hand how difficult group conversations could be. At family dinners, following several people speaking at once was challenging. At work, meetings required a huge amount of concentration.
As Jari explains in the Rabobank interview:
“My mother in particular could feel lonely because of it.”
Quote translated from the original Dutch interview.
Around ten years ago, these experiences led Jari and the team to explore whether speech recognition technology could help.
Existing applications could already convert speech into text, but most worked best with one speaker at a time. Real conversations are different. People respond to each other, speakers change quickly and knowing who said what is an important part of understanding the conversation.
That challenge led to the development of the Speaksee Microphone Kit.
Making group conversations readable
The Microphone Kit was developed to help people who are deaf or hard of hearing follow conversations with multiple speakers.
Speech from multiple microphones is converted into text, with different colours identifying the different speakers. This makes it possible to follow not only what is being said, but also who is saying it.
According to Rabobank, the development of the technology took five years and ultimately resulted in a patented system.
But hearing is not the only barrier that can make spoken communication difficult.
Language can be one too.
And that led to another application of the technology.
From live captions to translation with Soundshape
Soundshape is designed for professional organisations and live environments.
It converts spoken content into live text and can translate it into more than 100 languages. This makes it possible for people to follow presentations and events in a language they understand, while captions also provide an additional way for deaf and hard-of-hearing participants to access the content.
As Jari puts it in the Rabobank article:
“Soundshape is specifically aimed at B2B organisations.”
For an international event, that can make a significant difference.
A conference may bring together visitors from different countries. A company event may include employees who can understand the main event language, but would follow complex information more easily in their first language. Other participants may rely on captions to follow the speaker.
These are different needs, but the underlying question is the same:
Can everyone follow what is being said?
Soundshape helps organisations and event professionals answer that question without creating a completely separate experience for every audience member.
Live captions and translations can be added to professional event and AV workflows and shown on screens, smartphones, tablets, laptops and livestreams.
See Soundshape in action
Want to experience the quality and speed of live captions and translation yourself?
Rabobank as more than a financier
The Rabobank article also provides an interesting look behind the scenes of building new technology.
Speaksee initially worked with an angel investor to develop its prototype and later successfully used crowdfunding. Rabobank subsequently provided innovation financing for both the Microphone Kit and Soundshape.
But the relationship went beyond financing.
Rabobank was also one of the first large organisations to use Speaksee's technology in practice.
That matters for a young technology company. Real-world use shows how a product performs outside a development environment and provides valuable feedback for further improvement.
Jari describes its importance clearly:
“Becoming a customer is the best way to help a startup.”
Rabobank's early adoption helped open doors for Speaksee and supported the technology as it moved from development into practical use.
Different solutions, one mission
The Speaksee Microphone Kit and Soundshape are different products developed for different situations.
The Microphone Kit focuses on making group conversations easier to follow for people who are deaf or hard of hearing.
Soundshape focuses on live captions and multilingual translation for professional organisations, presentations and events.
But both come from the same underlying idea: spoken communication should not unnecessarily exclude people.
For someone who is deaf or hard of hearing, accessibility might mean being able to read what is being said.
For someone attending an international conference, it might mean following a presentation in another language.
For an organiser, employer or AV professional, it means giving more people a way to participate in the same communication.
Making spoken content easier to follow
The technology has developed significantly since the first ideas behind Speaksee, but the original challenge remains surprisingly simple.
When something important is being said, people should be able to follow it.
With Soundshape, live captions and translation in more than 100 languages give organisations another way to make presentations and events more accessible and international.
Whether the barrier is hearing, language or both, the goal remains the same: helping more people understand what is being said.
The full story about Jari, the development of Speaksee, Soundshape and Rabobank's role is available in Rabobank's original Dutch article, published on 27 August 2026.
Read the original Dutch article on Rabobank.nl
Want to experience Soundshape yourself?
Discover how live captions and translation can fit into your event or organisation.
