Danny Manu Creates Wireless Earbuds That Auto-Translate 40 Languages

With the world becoming one global community beyond what any human being could have imagined, an innovation that bridges gaps in languages are a giant step in bringing people together. Such desire – to birth a novel technological innovation transcending language barriers among global citizens – is one that oozes a conflation of mechanics and love; love for humankind in bringing people together.

Wireless earbuds are eminent in the consumption of audio files of different strands, and the pressure to meet this soaring demand has been answered by Danny Manu, a Ghanaian-British engineer and technology entrepreneur who has developed the world’s first auto-translating wireless earbuds. His radically innovative creation, given the name Click, is capable of translating over 40 languages in real-time.

This is definitely unchartered but exciting territory for scientific advancements in the world. As distinct from similar inventions in the past, Click does not need the internet to perform the self-translating tasks. Click has been created under the company MyManu.

The wireless Bluetooth headset is developed in a manner that must be paired to a smartphone for functionality. The Operating System then does the rest of the work – it makes “text-to-speech and speech-to-text” translation possible. The Bluetooth headset automatically picks up the language being spoken and provides a spoken translation “within a sentence or two”. The wireless Bluetooth earbuds easily sync with a smartphone enabling instantaneous translation.

The latest invention has become a hit in markets across Europe, U.S., and Asia. Danny Manu relied on scant financial support to bring this invention to life – it is difficult for Black-owned startups to acquire venture funding/capital and an arduous journey of self-financing remains the only option.

He remarked, “Like all the other ethnic minority-run businesses within the UK, I had a hard time getting the funding and financial support from banks and government-funded programmes that I needed.” The self-belief he had relating to his concept kept him going. A lot of crowdfunding efforts saw the invention coming to life.

What is inspiring about his story is that despite the endless structural disadvantages that Black people are beset with, both on the continent and in the diaspora, the sheer determination to contribute life-changing epistemological innovations is inimitable. Now if one were to picture a world where everyone starts on an equal level, the need to fend off stereotypes of a negative nature that are attached to Africa would be non-existent.

On Danny Manu’s background, Business Insider Africa writes, “…Danny is an engineer who was born in the United Kingdom to Ghanaian parents. He studied at Oxford Brookes University and had previously worked at Quanta Networks Inc. and MEDYBIRD before establishing MyManu in 2014. He has a background in music and earth and was recently recognized by Google for his contributions to science, arts, and culture.”

More stories of this caliber always inject a refreshing narrative that action (praxis) is triumphant over everything else. It is something that every African should celebrate – the victory of one African is by all accounts, and in such a hostile world, a victory for all Africans. And a victory for humankind in the final analysis.