Esther Mueni, the founder of Knock Knock, a company that manufactures hearing aids, recently revealed the inspiration behind launching her enterprise.
In an interview shared with Kenyans.co.ke, Mueni highlighted that her motivation originated from witnessing a friend's daily struggles with hearing different sounds.
Using her skills as an Internet of Things (IoT) engineer, Mueni aimed to assist her friend who, on two separate occasions, missed the sound of a knock at the door and was even involved in an accident because the sound of a hooting lorry behind him went unheard.
The team, therefore, headed to the lab to develop a hearing aid that could assist the hearing-impaired in recognising certain sounds such as a crying baby, a knock at the door, ringing bells, and car honking.
Esther Mueni, a self-taught engineer holding a degree in Business Information Technology, has spent five years in this field.
She has created prototypes of the gadget, which have the ability to "capture various environmental sounds and translate them into visual and vibratory alerts for the deaf or people experiencing hearing loss.
"The idea emerged when we saw how hard it was for our friends who have impaired hearing to interact with the day to day sound environment, for instance responding to a knock at the door would be a big challenge. This is where the idea and the name came from. The aim is to work on a single gadget that can capture and relay a whole range of sounds using lights and vibrations," Mueni explained.
"We started building it as a simple project to solve a problem for friends, we were not even thinking about going commercial with it. We simply wanted to use our skills as IoT engineers to build a solution for this immediate problem for a friend."
The gadget's popularity spread rapidly through word of mouth and referrals.
However, the company faced obstacles related to hardware importation, which led to an increase in the product's price. In response, the company underwent a business remodeling process to better serve businesses.
In their commitment to ensuring widespread access to the invention, the company has focused on collaborating with institutions like schools that cater to students with hearing impairments.
"In as much as we are trying to ensure that our products are highly affordable, they are still a bit pricey to our target customers mainly because of the laws relating to importation of hardware products," she added.
"To solve this, we shifted majorly from B2C to B2B and also subdivided the product into different tiers/categorizations (basic, mid and premium). We are currently mainly targeting institutions that work with the deaf rather than selling directly to the individuals themselves."
If rolled out for mass consumption, the product will improve the lives of nearly 153,400 deaf people living in Kenya as per the Kenya National Population Census 2019. The individuals are aged five years and above.
The data further showed that a majority of the individuals (129,518) reside in rural areas while slightly over 23,000 live in urban centers.
