Emaration · Outreach & Community Support
People make the world great.
Emaration Outreach & Community Support develops practical technology with people who have vision and hearing loss.
Our first projects are a light-up white cane designed to improve visibility after dark and a real-time transcript app designed to make everyday conversations easier to follow.
We believe technology should support greater safety, communication, independence, and control—with people guiding every decision.
Who the work serves
Built with the people it's for
Our initial work focuses on blind and low-vision people, deaf and hard-of-hearing people, and people living with combined vision and hearing loss.
Safety
Tools that help people move through streets, neighborhoods, workplaces, and public spaces with greater confidence.
Communication
Technology that helps people follow conversations and communicate in ways that work for them.
Community
Projects shaped through feedback from blind, low-vision, deaf, and hard-of-hearing people.
Our projects
What we're building
Our projects begin with real experiences and practical problems. We are developing them carefully, listening to the people who may use them, and putting reliability ahead of flashy features.
A white cane designed to be seen
Status: Early development
The light-up white cane began after a driver nearly hit Jordan on a dark Portland street and said they had not seen him—even though he was carrying his white cane.
The concept adds optional lighting to a familiar white cane so drivers, cyclists, and other pedestrians can more easily see the person using it after dark.
The cane must remain lightweight, dependable, and fully usable when the lighting is turned off or the battery is empty. The person using it controls when the light is visible.
A transcript app designed around real conversations
Status: Concept and community-feedback stage
We are also developing a real-time transcript app specifically with deaf and hard-of-hearing people in mind.
The app will turn spoken conversations into clear, readable text and give users control over text size, contrast, display preferences, privacy, and when transcription begins or ends.
The goal is to make conversations easier to follow at work, during appointments, in meetings, at restaurants, and in everyday life.
Why these problems matter
Technology should solve real problems
For people with vision or hearing loss, a small barrier can affect an entire day: a driver not seeing a white cane after dark, missing important information during an appointment, or trying to use technology that was not designed with accessibility in mind.
Emaration Outreach develops tools around those real experiences.
AI may help with the work, but people decide what gets built, what is useful, and whether it is ready.
Jordan's leadership
Led by lived experience
Jordan experienced vision loss and then profound hearing loss. He adapted, kept working, and started building ideas around the problems he knew firsthand.
He helps set project priorities, shape product ideas, and review accessibility decisions — his role in the work, in full, is on his page.
Design principles
How we approach the work
User control
The person using the technology decides when it is active, how it behaves, and which settings work best for them.
Familiar first
New technology should not make a familiar tool harder to use. The white cane must remain a dependable white cane, with or without power.
Accessibility from the beginning
Accessibility should guide the design before a product is built—not be added after problems are discovered.
Reliability over novelty
A small number of dependable features is more valuable than a long list of features that do not work consistently.
Privacy
People should understand what information is processed, what is stored, and how to delete it.
Community feedback
The people affected by the problem should help shape and evaluate the solution.
How the outreach work is funded
A mission built into the company
Emaration has committed 10% of its net profit to Outreach & Community Support. As the commercial company grows, its ability to support assistive technology and community partnerships can grow with it.
Help shape what we build
Follow a project, share a mobility or communication barrier, or join the interest list for future user testing.
From Oregon
Why the outdoors shows up here
The outdoors is part of why accessibility matters to us.