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FEATURE: Video relay service helping hard of hearing in disaster-hit areas
(Japan Economic Newswire Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) TOKYO, Feb. 16 -- (Kyodo) _ A Sendai-based company is offering a remote video relay service free of charge for people with hearing problems in areas hit by last year's massive earthquake and tsunami, employing the expertise it has developed in a business venture largely unknown in Japan.
PLUSVoice Co. started the free service, in which sign language interpreters help users in Iwate, Miyagi and Fukushima gain access to information via videophones, shortly after the March 11 disaster devastated the Pacific coast in the northeastern prefectures.
After months of voluntary efforts, PLUSVoice obtained financial aid from the Nippon Foundation, a Tokyo-based nonprofit organization promoting cultural exchanges and communication support, in September, enabling the company to continue what its head calls its "mission."
"We don't seek profits and it is a sense of mission that has driven us to work on this," said Hiroyuki Miura, the 48-year-old founder and president of PLUSVoice.
According to the Nippon Foundation, the victims of the disaster include many who are in need of sign language interpreting and captioning services particularly for applications for administrative certificates and jobs as well as hospital appointments.
PLUSVoice began its remote interpreting service in 2002 through videophones placed at government offices and shops so that people with hearing problems, including the deaf and hard of hearing, can communicate with officials and shop clerks.
Then the company expanded the service the following year, aiming directly at individuals with the use of videophones, e-mails and faxes.
"Hard-of-hearing people used to be unable to order a meal, for instance, because they couldn't make a phone call," Miura said. "But with one smartphone, they now can place calls wherever they are."
Toru Tanaka, a 48-year-old barber from the town of Taiwa, Miyagi Prefecture who is a frequent user of the PLUSVoice service, said, "It is very convenient and has changed my life."
"I know some who hesitate to use it because it costs money, but without this we would have to go out for help, meaning we need to pay for transportation anyway," he said of the service, which is offered with a basic fee of 315 yen for one call -- for up to 15 minutes -- and includes a monthly package fee of 5,250 yen for unlimited calls.
Miura founded PLUSVoice in 1998 after working as a master of ceremonies at weddings in Sendai. He recalled an episode he experienced about three years earlier, which led to a change in his career.
The bride was deaf and many of the guests had hearing difficulties, and Miura was shocked that his conversation skills proved useless.
"I must've been the worst MC ever that day," he said.
That prodded Miura to start learning sign language and it did not take him long before starting up a business for physically challenged people. His move came at around the time when mobile phones with text messaging functions were becoming hugely popular in Japan.
Riding on the new wave of mobile devices, Miura worked hard to broaden the customer base for his business, focusing on mobile phone sales at the time. One time he collected requests from people with hearing problems and brought them to a telecommunications company in a set of proposals to improve phone functions for their convenience.
Another turning point for Miura came on one evening about 10 years ago when Michihito Fujii, his 45-year-old research partner for developing an Internet videophone system, appeared on a computer display with a distraught look.
His partner, who is deaf, explained through sign language that gas was leaking in his neighborhood in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture. Miura swiftly made an emergency call and then served as a remote interpreter for the conversations between Fujii and firefighters from Sendai, roughly 300 kilometers from the scene.
"I came face to face with the very moment a hard-of-hearing person needed to communicate with another person in real time," Miura said.
A 2006 estimate by the Health, Labor and Welfare Ministry put the number of people with hearing or speech disabilities in Japan at about 360,000. Given the country's rapidly aging society, demand for such communication support is expected to grow.
However, video relay services have yet to take roots in Japan and many businesses have pulled out after unsuccessful forays. PLUSVoice itself is struggling as the number of its customers has peaked at about 1,000.
Mitsuhiko Ogawa, director of the All Japan Association of Hard of Hearing People, complained of the lack of public awareness and the financial burdens associated with the use of such services.
"Many deaf or hard-of-hearing people simply think they cannot make phone calls," Ogawa said. "I myself never thought of making calls until I used it and became aware that my world had broadened."
PLUSVoice's Miura believes he has helped create a system for better communication for everyone with hearing problems.
"Every time people at government offices ask me how many of these use videophones, I make it a rule to say 'all of them will use them in the future,'" Miura said.
(c) 2012 Kyodo News International, Inc.
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