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Ai-Media officially launches in Youngstown
By Kalea Hall
YOUNGSTOWN
Jamie Ruffin and Todd Shay were both laid-off autoworkers when they heard about Ai-Media coming to Youngstown.
The Australian company that provides captioning services selected Youngstown to be its home for its first North American operation center.
“This is a great thing this company is doing, so I am really proud to be a part of this,” said Shay, who is now a respeaking captioner for the company.
On Monday, Ai celebrated the launch of its Center of Excellence in Youngstown at the Youngstown Business Incubator – where the company trained its 14 employees as respeaking captioners.
“We have been trying to build up and diversify our economy,” said U.S. Rep. Tim Ryan of Howland, D-13th. “This was a real team effort. We spend an inexhaustible amount of time trying to bring jobs to this community that are not low wage jobs.”
Ai-Media, established in 2003, 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. Ai, which stands for access inclusion, has a goal of wanting to create a world that is more open accessible.
At the launch event, leaders of the company provided stories of how the deaf and autistic have benefited from the company’s programs.
“I think the company is absolutely amazing and truly genuine in trying to get access to people who are deaf or hard of hearing or people who speak a different language,” said Tiffany Pellin of Ellsworth, a respeaking captioner for Ai-Media. “I truly believe in their goal. They are working so hard and around the clock for people to have access.”
The team effort started with Tony Abrahams, co-founder and CEO of Ai-Media, meeting with Patrick McKenna, founding partner of High Ridge Global of San Francisco who invests in companies all over the country and the world including Enyx Studios, a virtual realty game development studio at YBI.
In February, McKenna spearheaded a group of 13 entrepreneurs who visited the Mahoning Valley in February at the invitation of Ryan.
“I met Congressman Ryan in San Francisco five years ago, and I appreciated his view of what’s possible across the country [with technology],” McKenna explained.
When McKenna met Abrahams he thought to show him Youngstown for Ai-Media’s North American launch. Abrahams came to Youngstown in May and saw the teamwork being done to revitalize the area.
“Everyone is in this together,” he said. “It was a deliberate process to choose Youngstown, and I feel like we definitely made the right decision.”