For hard-of-hearing children · A not-for-profit in Chennai

Your hard-of-hearing child can follow every lesson, right alongside their friends.

Sevilo shows the teacher's words as live captions on your child's desk, so nothing in class gets missed. It is private, simple, and made for Indian classrooms. Teachers don't need to change a thing.

Get Sevilo for your child See how it works

No phone or appA simple screen on the desk, which a school can approve as an assistive device.
Works offlineSpeech becomes text inside the classroom.
Hindi, English and regional languagesIncluding the mix teachers really speak.
100 schools fundedPhase 1 hardware is already paid for.

What the student sees

An example · Class 6 · Science · Tamil

சூரிய வெப்பத்தால் நீர் ஆவியாகிறது.

The sun's heat turns water into vapor.

ஆவி மேலே சென்று குளிர்ந்து மேகமாகிறது.

The vapor rises, cools, and forms clouds.

இதுவே நீர் சுழற்சி எனப்படும்.

This is called the water cycle.

01Our vision

No child should fall behind because they missed the words.

A child who is hard of hearing catches only part of each lesson. We want every child to follow the class as it happens, right alongside their friends, in a way schools and parents can trust.

Every word, as it's spoken: Captions appear while the teacher talks, so the child never has to catch up later.
Private by design: Speech becomes text inside the classroom. Nothing goes online during class.
The teacher stays in charge: After class, the teacher decides what is saved or shared. Nothing is uploaded without approval.
Made for Indian schools: Designed for Hindi, English and regional languages, with no phone and no internet needed.

02The problem

Most hard-of-hearing students in India sit in regular classrooms, where lessons are almost all spoken.

Few classrooms have the support these students need. The tools that could help often clash with school rules and privacy laws.

What students face

Noisy rooms: Fans, traffic and chatter drown out the teacher. Hearing aids make all of it louder.
Lip-reading breaks down: When the teacher turns to the board, walks around, or talks fast.
Few interpreters: Schools have very few sign language interpreters or special educators. Most students cope alone.
Watching or writing, not both: A student reading lips can't take notes, and borrowed notes are often incomplete.
Mixed languages: Teachers switch between Hindi, English and a regional language, which defeats lip-reading and most caption tools.

What teachers and schools face

Large classes: With 40 or more students, a teacher can't repeat every point or write separate notes for one child.
Children's data law: India's Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 requires parental consent to process children's data. Cloud apps that record the whole class put that risk on the school.
Teachers don't want to be recorded: An always-on recorder that sends audio to the cloud feels like surveillance.
Phone bans: Most caption tools run on phones or tablets, and many schools ban them in class.
Poor fit, high cost: Today's tools are English-first and need steady internet. Remote microphones and human captioners cost too much.

03How it works

Teach as you always do. Every child follows along.

Sevilo does two separate jobs. Live captions run in the classroom with no internet. Study support runs in the cloud after class, and only if the teacher says yes.

During class · inside the room

The teacher talks: As usual, in Hindi, English, or a mix.
A hub on the teacher's desk: Picks out the teacher's voice, filters out fans, traffic and student chatter, and turns speech into text on the device.
A caption screen on the student's desk: Shows the captions live. No browser, no apps, no camera.

No internet is needed. Captions are made and shown inside the room.

After class · optional

Captions are made locally. No phone, no app, no internet. The hub can delete raw audio as soon as it is transcribed.
The teacher reviews. They see a time-stamped draft, fix mistakes, and tap Approve. Only text is uploaded, never audio.
The student catches up at home. Larger AI models work on the approved text, so students get summaries, study guides, searchable notes, questions and answers, and Hindi–English translations, while the classroom stays private.

04For parents

Your child has the right to support in class. Here is how to ask for it.

Indian law already asks schools to support children who are hard of hearing. These steps help you work with your child's school, as a partner.

Know your child's rights

Support at school: Under the Rights of Persons with Disabilities Act, 2016, schools funded or recognized by the government should admit your child without discrimination and make reasonable changes to meet their needs.
Free learning aids: The same law says students with a benchmark disability get books, learning materials and assistive devices free until age 18.
Exam support: This can include extra time, a scribe, or exemption from a second or third language.
Help through Samagra Shiksha: The national school programme funds aids and appliances, special educators and resource rooms for children with special needs in classes 1 to 12.

Five steps to get support

Get a hearing test at a government hospital or an audiologist. Keep the report.
Apply for a disability certificate and UDID card online at swavlambancard.gov.in. A government hospital does the assessment.
Meet the teacher and principal. Share the report, and explain what is hard for your child in class.
Ask in writing. List the support your child needs. A written request is easier for a school to act on.
Follow up with your block resource centre or district education office. Still stuck? Contact your State Commissioner for Persons with Disabilities.

Tips for talking with the school

Go as a partner. Teachers want your child to do well too.
Bring the hearing report and certificate, if you have them.
Ask for small, concrete things: a front seat, written notes, a caption screen.
Suggest a short trial, so the school can see it working.
Write down what was agreed, and who will do it.

This is general information, not legal advice. Rules and schemes can differ by state. Check with your school or district education office.

05For schools

Built to fit the rules schools already have.

Every concern a principal is likely to raise has a clear answer.

School concern	Our answer
Classroom audio going to the cloud	Captions are made on the hub. Audio stays in the room.
Recording other students	The hub focuses on the teacher's voice and filters out students before anything is stored.
Phones and tablets in class	A simple caption screen with no browser, apps or camera. Schools can approve it as an assistive device.
Losing control of what's shared	The teacher approves every upload. The school decides if the feature is on at all.
Children's data law	The cloud step is optional, happens after class, and uses text only.
Will it really help?	Live captions in class, plus full study support at home.

06Where we are

Early stage. Looking for partners to build and test with.

Next steps

Build: A prototype hub that understands Hindi, English and mixed classroom speech on the device.
Pilot: Trials with a few schools and teachers in Chennai, with real students from day one.
Partner: Work with researchers in Indian speech, sign language and assistive technology.

Open questions

Can on-device models handle Hindi, regional languages and mixed Hindi–English well enough?
How well can the hub pick out the teacher's voice in a crowded, noisy room?
Who gives consent for the after-class upload: the school, the parents, or both?
What should one classroom cost, and who pays: schools, government programmes, or CSR partners?

07Founding team

The people behind Sevilo.

Krishnan

Founder

30+ years building AI and enterprise systems in the US, at HCL HP, Sun Microsystems and Cisco, where he worked on AI and machine-learning platforms. He is an AI architect, an engineering leader, and a faculty member at SupportVectors.

He has come back to India to use that experience for hard-of-hearing students, as a not-for-profit effort. He is based in Chennai through early 2027.

08Funding

Phase 1 hardware is funded for 100 schools.

Funding is secured for the classroom hubs and caption screens for our first 100 schools, so those schools pay nothing for the hardware. Partners who want to help us reach more schools are welcome.

09Partners

Built with partners and advisors in AI, voice and hearing.

OSpectra.ai: AI technology partner. Provides the AI technology that powers Sevilo.
Conscious Twin: Voice modeling partner. Helps Sevilo model and recognize the teacher's voice.
Asif Qamar: Advisor. Chief Scientist and Educator at SupportVectors. 30+ years in applied AI and machine learning, with more than a dozen products built and still in use.
Prof. Ranjith Rajeswaran: Advisor, hearing and audiology. Principal and Managing Director of the MERF Institute of Speech & Hearing, and Chief Audiologist at the Madras ENT Research Foundation in Chennai. About 25 years in audiology, hearing implants and auditory habilitation. Vice President of the Cochlear Implant Group of India.

10Get involved

We need people who know classrooms, languages and hardware.

Schools and teachers: Host a pilot. Tell us what your classroom really sounds like. Help shape the teacher review step.
Researchers: Work with us on Indian-language speech recognition, voice separation, and low-cost assistive devices.
The deaf and hard-of-hearing community: Students, parents and organisations: help us build something that works for the people who use it.
Special educators: Help design study support that fits how hard-of-hearing students actually learn.
Funders and CSR partners: Fund prototypes and pilot classrooms, so the first schools pay nothing.
Engineers and students: Build on-device AI, embedded hardware, and the teacher and student apps.

Write to us at hello@sevilo.org.

11Join the pilot

Get Sevilo for your child.

Tell us about your child and their school. We'll help you talk to the school about joining our Phase 1 pilot, where the hardware is already funded. Teachers and schools are welcome to write in too.

Email hello@sevilo.org with your name, your child's school, and your city. It helps to say whether the school already knows about Sevilo.

We use what you send only to talk to you about the pilot.