A New Chapter for Grenzeloos : lingua.direct, an AI tool Breaking Language Barriers

By Frits Koppelaar, Founder of lingua.direct

Language should never be the reason for someone to struggle to integrate into their new home country or access support. But in the Netherlands and also around the world, thousands of people continue to find language barriers a hurdle to building real connections. 

Shaped by this belief and also with a goal to develop technology for good is what led to the creation of lingua.direct – an AI powered voice translation tool for natural conversations!

A social enterprise for a scalable impact

Before founding lingua.direct, I co-founded Grenzeloos, a social enterprise restaurant in Maastricht where people with a refugee background could follow a learn-and-work trajectory. By working in a team, interacting with guests and combining practical experience with group and personal lessons, participants learned the Dutch language and gained insight into the Dutch labor market.

Our goal was simple: make the first steps in Dutch society a little easier for newcomers. And with the rapid development of AI, I saw an opportunity to tackle this problem at scale through lingua.direct. 

Built for the people 

lingua.direct is a dedicated two-way AI language voice translation tool designed to support people during important, real-world conversations as naturally as possible 

It is a browser based application that lowers the barriers to access for its users! Simply open your browser, register for a free or paid service and start communicating. 

The platform at the moment supports 74 languages and serves two core audiences : individuals and organizations including NGOs, businesses and government departments that can easily integrate the translation tool into their workflow with a fraction of traditional costs. And while there are other commercial options on the market, they fail to offer fine-grain control and integration into your own processes and management of privacy in a cost-effective way. 

This is ultimately the goal of lingua.direct that enables its paid users to have total control over the services used under the hood by either self-hosting or having a cloud option. 

lingua.direct is developed by Invenix, Koppelaar's software agency focused on impact-driven technology.