General Views of the Lusail Stadium – Lusail, Qatar, March 28, 2022. General view inside the Lusail Stadium, the venue for the 2022 Qatar World Cup Final REUTERS/Pawel Kopczynski

i24 News – Planning for the 2022 World Cup is reaching its final stages, including for people with disabilities, who are the focus of an Israeli startup that is working to make the mega-event in Qatar accessible to the deaf community.

“There are going to be thousands of deaf people coming to Qatar from all over the world,” Tomer Levy, founder and CEO of Sign Now, told i24NEWS.

“From their houses, some 50 million deaf people will watch the games,” he added.

Sign Now, an app that connects deaf and hard-of-hearing users to sign language interpreters, made its debut in 2019 when it managed the Israeli-hosted Eurovision song contest.

Levy explained that only part of the focus is on the upcoming international soccer tournament, alongside applications like helping people in emergency situations and others in everyday life.

“We allow deaf people around the world to communicate with banks, shops, and hospitals. With the war in Ukraine, we helped dozens of deaf people escape and communicate with emergency call centers.”

Speaking to i24NEWS while an interpreter signed in Arabic from another location, Levy revealed where he plans to take the service next.

“We have a combined team of deaf and hearing, Jews and Arabs, helping especially the Arab society in Israel,” he said.

“We are starting our overseas strategy with Arab states. In 2022, we will manage accessibility in hospitals in the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, among others that I shouldn’t say.”

In a final message, Levy addressed the global deaf community: “We don’t care where you come from, we don’t care about politics. We just want to help deaf people be a part of society.”