Nagish is a New York-based assistive-technology company that uses proprietary AI to caption phone calls in real time, converting speech to text and text to speech so people who are deaf or hard of hearing can make and receive calls independently and privately - without a human relay operator. Its name means 'accessible' in Hebrew. The company is one of the few firms certified by the FCC to provide telecommunication relay services and offers its consumer app for free.
Tomer Aharoni is the co-founder and CEO of Nagish, a New York startup using AI to caption phone calls in real time so Deaf and hard-of-hearing people can place and receive calls by typing and reading, with no human operator in the loop. The idea began with a phone ringing during a class at Columbia and a question he couldn't shake: how do you take a call if you can't hear or speak? Nagish (Hebrew for 'accessible') is now FCC-certified, offered free to users through federal subsidies, and has raised $16 million. Aharoni builds the product hand-in-hand with the Deaf community and is now pushing into AI sign-language translation.
Michael Buckley is the Chairman and CEO of Be My Eyes, the world's largest digital volunteer organization connecting blind and low-vision users with sighted volunteers via live video calls. A communications veteran who spent 12 years at Brunswick Group and three years as Facebook's VP of Global Business Communications, Buckley pivoted to mission-driven tech when he joined Be My Eyes in December 2022. Under his leadership, Be My Eyes launched Be My AI (powered by GPT-4), which TIME named one of the Best Inventions of 2023, and scaled the platform to over 1 million blind and low-vision users supported by 6.7 million volunteers worldwide. He is also co-founder and chairman of Ocean's Halo, a seaweed-based natural foods company, and an active angel investor.
George Netscher is the Founder and CEO of SafelyYou, a San Francisco-based AI company that uses computer vision to prevent falls and elevate dementia care across senior living communities. Netscher launched the company in 2015 as doctoral research at UC Berkeley's AI Research Lab, driven by his family's direct experience with Alzheimer's disease - his grandmother and aunt both had the condition, and his mother cared for them while working as a physician. SafelyYou's ambient sensor platform now serves nearly 1,000 senior living communities, has raised over $134 million in total funding including a $43 million Series C in 2025, and has been shown to reduce falls by 40% and fall-related ER visits by up to 80%. In May 2025, Netscher was elected to the Argentum Board of Directors, the leading national senior living industry association.