Lira | Innovate Carolina

Q & A

Tell us about the issue you want to tackle with your social venture.

At LiRA we want to tackle aphonia, or voicelessness, caused by surgical interventions such as tracheostomy (a medical procedure where a breathing tube is put through your neck that allows you to breathe but not speak). Our mission is to alleviate the expressive communication handicap due to voicelessness as current surrogate communication methods are ineffective.

Why did you feel compelled to take on that issue?

We feel compelled to solve this issue because of the inequalities voiceless individuals face and the lack of optimal substitutes. Over 400,000 tracheostomies are performed annually in the US which leaves patients unable to communicate their common wants, express their concerns, or indicate their needs. Voiceless patients experience higher levels of anxiety and frustration, which can lead to depression or even slow recovery time. We want to give patients their voice back so that they may regain their personal autonomy once more.

What inspired you to launch your social venture through CUBE at the Campus Y?

We are excited to work with CUBE given the incredible resources offered to new entrepreneurs like mentorship and workspace. Since we are a new venture, we are also eager to meet with and learn from other ventures in our cohort who are driven to make social change in our community.

What do you hope to achieve during your CUBE residency?

As a team we all hope to learn how to successfully run a new venture by drawing on the strong knowledge based in the CUBE and Innovate Carolina communities. CUBE offers a unique insight into social entrepreneurship that will drive us to solving injustices for the rest of our career.

What social impact do you hope to have with your venture?

We hope to significantly improve the quality of life of voiceless patients. These patients face a remarkable challenge communicating with not only their doctors, but their families as well. This social isolation from loved ones during a stay in the hospital can be detrimental to an individual’s wellbeing and recovery Through LiRA we aim to restore the lost vocal connection to others by providing high-fidelity, real-time lip-reading-to-computer spoken speech

What motivates you to be a student entrepreneur?

Entrepreneurship is action. It is the drive to solve a problem in the here and now. To that end the LiRA team is made of passionate, driven, hungry graduate students and a medical resident committed to developing a sustainable, clinically translatable, widely disseminated solution to voicelessness. Standing at the bedside and watching voicelessness occur to patients in their sickest moments is devastating to witness much less experience. This particularly complicates the ability to navigate complex conversations like treatment plans and end of life discussions. Thus, at LiRA we are driven by an effort to bring equity and social inclusivity to the ailing voiceless.