ABOUT THIS PROJECT
TranslateText was born from a simple but powerful idea:
What if a mom in a rural village, a traveler at a border, or a nurse with a patient could just… understand each other?
Languages are beautiful. But sometimes, they keep us apart.
TranslateText is our attempt to bridge that gap — to help real people talk to real people, in real time, across languages, borders, cultures, and generations.
We’re starting small, but we dream big.
THE BACKGROUND
We’ve spent months building TranslateText as a real-time text-based translator. It’s clean, no tracking, no fluff — it just works.
We designed it with everyday life in mind — not just polished boardrooms or tech conferences.
Think:
- a parent at a clinic,
- a confused tourist,
- someone texting their long-lost cousin,
- even a guy trying to impress someone on a dating app!
We realized so many native and village languages — like Khoisan, Native American dialects, rural Arabic, African or South American indigenous tongues — aren’t even in Google Translate.
We want to help fix that.
We also want to help people laugh again over language, not just get frustrated by it. Everyone has a miscommunication story — ours involved a menu, a goat, and one very angry uncle.
THE PLAN
We’ve built the core text translation engine, and it’s already online (well… it was, until Google suspended us for owing 6 cents 😅).
So here’s the plan:
With your help, we’ll:
- Get our Firebase hosting back up
- Keep it completely free to users
- Add more underserved languages
- Expand to help moments that matter: parenting, immigration, dating, health
- Eventually bring speech and audio back (when we can afford it!)
We believe in simple, human-first tools that just work. Not bloated apps. Just help when you need it.
YOUR REWARDS
Pledge R20 = Reward #1: Founding Friends
- Our warm, undying gratitude and your name on our virtual “Founding Friends” wall.
- We won’t send you spam. We’ll just raise our digital hand and give you the biggest, most grateful high-five ever.
- You’re helping build something for the world, and that’s already pretty amazing.
Pledge R50 = Reward #2: Wall of Gratitude
- A thank-you shoutout on our socials and a sneak peek at our next set of features.
- Every supporter counts — and we want to remember that. Your name will be permanently listed on our Wall of Gratitude so future users know who helped build this. If you'd like, we’ll also send you a personal thank you email… in your language, of course 😉
- Every supporter counts — and we want to remember that. Your name will be permanently listed on our Wall of Gratitude so future users know who helped build this. If you'd like, we’ll also send you a personal thank you email… in your language, of course 😉
Pledge R100 = Reward #3
- As one of our earliest backers, you'll get sneak peeks, early access to new language tools, and a digital Founding Friend badge to show off (if you're into that sort of thing).
- Mostly, you’ll be helping people — from moms in the village to kids at school — speak and be understood
- Plus early access to our upcoming TranslateText tools and first dibs when voice features go live again.
Project FAQ
Who am I?
- My name is Ephraim Maisiri, and I'm just a regular person with an irregular obsession: helping people understand each other.
- I’ve spent years navigating places where language was a wall instead of a bridge — and I’ve always believed it didn’t have to be that way.
- TranslateText started as a simple idea sketched in notebooks and whispered in late-night conversations.
- Now, it's grown into something real and useful, designed for everyday people who just want to connect.
Where are we based?
- We’re building this from the heart of Africa — a place bursting with languages, cultures, and stories.
- But really, TranslateText belongs to everyone, everywhere.
- Whether you’re in a village with no Wi-Fi or a bustling city filled with tourists, the idea is the same: people need to understand each other.
- We may be working quietly in the background, but our goal is global.
Why Crowdfunding?
- Because we didn’t build TranslateText to be a faceless app owned by corporations.
- We built it to serve real people.
- Crowdfunding gives us the chance to keep it that way — free to serve you the people, we're asking real people to help us build something useful for all of us.
- A tool that doesn’t judge your accent, region, or income. Just pure communication.
What is the plan once 100% funding is received?
- The moment funding lands, we hit go. We’ll bring TranslateText back online and keep it free for everyone.
- Then, we expand — adding more underrepresented languages, building better offline functionality, and making it even simpler for the everyday user.
- This isn’t a one-hit app. It’s a foundation we plan to grow, so your support now makes sure that what starts as a small tool becomes a long-term resource for generations.
