Ai-Media celebrates launch of North American operation in Youngstown

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Ai-Media, an Australia technology startup, selected Youngstown to house its first North American operation center.

Established in 2003, Ai-Media employs more than 200 people providing captioning services for broadcast clients.

Its internet captioning service, Ai-Live, is used at universities, colleges, schools, workplaces and conferences, providing real-time speech-to-text delivered remotely to any connected device.

On Monday, Ai will celebrate the launch of its Center of Excellence at the Youngstown Business Incubator.

YBI provided a training space for Ai-Media to train employees on Ai-Live. The company received 750 applications for training and narrowed it down to 15. Of the 15, 14 graduated from the training and will now work as captioneers.

“I was just struck how open, warm and generous the community was and how hungry people were to attract new jobs to the area,” said Tony Abrahams, co-founder and CEO of Ai-Media of Youngstown.

If the launch of the program is successful and the demand is high, Abrahams plans to do a second training and possible a third. He hopes to see the company eventually employ 2,000.

Ai-Media came to Youngstown through U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th.

“We are working to figure out how to help them build their company here,” said Barb Ewing, CEO of the Youngstown Business Incubator. “Again, it’s more validation of the strength of our market.”