Amirali Rezaei
Bridging communication gaps
For Amirali Rezaei, a UWC Atlantic alum (2023-2024) from Iran, social change started with a conversation with his best friend in a café about purpose. From that conversation, the beginnings of AISA Solutions were born - a tech-driven initiative dedicated to improving communication accessibility for the deaf and hard-of-hearing (DHH) community. What began as a simple dream between two friends has since grown into an international, award-winning start-up.
AISA’s early days were marked by limitations: unstable internet, lack of resources, and political restrictions. But Amirali’s journey took a transformative turn upon his acceptance to UWC Atlantic. UWC’s ethos of service, global understanding, and innovation matched his vision for AISA. “It was the first time I was in an environment where people not only encouraged ambitious ideas but gave me the tools to pursue them,” he says.
Supported by Lighthouse, the college’s on-campus centre for meaningful changemaking, Amirali found not just mentorship, but community. Guided by staff, he applied for and secured multiple rounds of seed funding, including the GoMakeADifference grant and an initial £1,000 Lighthouse Grant. While his first application for the larger Lighthouse Prize Fund was unsuccessful, he used the feedback from the competition and from members of our community, including parents and alumni, to refine AISA’s mission and build a more compelling case. A year later, he and his team returned with a stronger pitch, and won the top prize of £10,000, which enabled AISA to grow from concept to functional prototype.
At UWC Atlantic, Amirali also launched a sign language CAS group, seeking to better understand the lived experiences of the DHH community. That ethos of empathy remains at AISA’s core. After multiple iterations and real-world testing with DHH individuals and speech-language pathologists, AISA pivoted from a basic transcription tool to AISA School.
AISA School is an interactive AI-powered app that teaches American Sign Language through real-time feedback. Using a custom-trained hand-tracking model, the platform enables users to learn fingerspelling, numbers, and conversational signs. Unlike traditional e-learning apps, AISA School is built around engagement and accessibility, designed for both the DHH community and the wider public. The team’s goal is to close the communication gap not just between hearing and non-hearing individuals, but within the DHH community itself, where sign language access and fluency vary widely across cultures. The app, now launched in alpha and moving towards public release on mobile platforms, reflects a deep commitment to design accessibility, user experience, and social impact.
Over the past year, AISA has garnered global attention, presenting at Web Summit Qatar, reaching the finals of the UK StartUp Awards Wales, and earning top honours at multiple pitch competitions. One particularly memorable moment came when Amirali won three out of four awards in a single evening at Case Western’s Accelerate competition, walking away with not just big cheques, but recognition for his commitment to accessible tech.
Today, AISA Solutions is a registered company in the U.S. with a global team spanning Iran, Sweden, China, Korea, and beyond. Despite receiving support from tech giants like Google and OpenAI, Amirali says the real success lies in building a mission-driven team that works passionately, often without compensation, towards a more inclusive world.
“Giving up is the worst enemy of success,” Amirali says, a mantra passed down from his father and now woven into AISA’s ethos. That mindset, coupled with the transformative influence of UWC, has made Amirali’s story a powerful example of what’s possible when purpose meets persistence.
“It was the first time at UWC Atlantic that I was in an environment where people not only encouraged ambitious ideas but gave me the tools to pursue them,”