United Arab Emirates · Open market · Operating partnership
Access on this page: Signed: Emirati Sign Language — pending How this page is tested
This page in sign language
Signed end to end by a Deaf creator, credited by name. International Sign on the global site; your national sign language on your country page.
ally is a platform where creators make sign language, captions and audio description — and one API delivers it to any screen. We are looking for the partner who will build the Emirati operation with us.
Why we are looking for a partner
One partner video — spoken, captioned and signed by a creator we already work with. It is shared across every open-market page. We do not fake a local signer to look established here.
The people
The UAE's sign language is Emirati Sign Language. In 2018 the Zayed Higher Organization for People of Determination, working with eight authorities and sixty Deaf people and specialists, compiled its first dictionary — about 5,000 signs — to standardise the language, teach it and train interpreters; the Cabinet adopted it. It is the UAE's answer to the 'unified' Arab sign language that Deaf communities across the region say they cannot understand.
In plain words
Below is who lives here and what reaches them. Every number on this page is a research seed, not an audited claim — we mark them, rather than publish numbers we cannot yet stand behind.
Why captions alone do not close this gap → Why sign language
The mandate
the federal rights framework; the 2017 national policy renamed the group 'people of determination'.
compiled by the Zayed Higher Organization with eight entities and sixty people with hearing disabilities and specialists; about 5,000 signs; adopted by the Cabinet; for teaching and for training interpreters.
Obligated buyers: federal and emirate-level public services under Federal Law No. 29 of 2006, and the media, transport and service sectors the UAE's national policy for people of determination addresses.
The gap
Emirati compliance is a reference without a duty: the dictionary exists and Federal Law No. 29 of 2006 guarantees rights, but nothing requires a signed bulletin, a captioned film or a described programme. Media in the UAE is regional and well resourced; access in Emirati Sign Language is absent from almost all of it. The gap is a supply of trained signers using the Cabinet's own dictionary.
What we bring
These are patterns, not promises — each one happened somewhere, and each carries its source. The place is abstracted because the pattern is what transposes.
Pattern
A replicable template: the ordinance language, the budget logic and the service behind it travel together. Any city can copy it.
Two city ordinances — one on healthcare accessibility, one on cinema accessibility — have passed first reading, with ally as technical partner.
Receipt: Parañaque City Council records
Pattern
The platform exists before the first contract. Buyers pay for a service, not for research.
ally's pre-operating research and development was supported by a national science research grant and a city government grant.
Receipt: company fact
Pattern
Real usage, real feedback, and the model for any school or district that wants signed content on what students already watch.
A telco-funded 2021 pilot brought the platform to a Deaf school community of about 800 users.
Receipt: company fact
We publish our signals — including the zeros — on the impact page.
The partnership
The structure is a licensed market operation, built with the local community. Terms are discussed directly.
The playbook
The partner
Operators with standing in accessibility, media, telecom, or government services. Deaf-led organisations and entrepreneurs are explicitly welcome — the best operator of an accessibility market may come from the community itself. Investors are welcome alongside an operator, or to introduce one.
Why now
The dictionary is seven years old and its stated purpose was training interpreters; a delivery layer that puts those interpreters on screen completes it. The UAE hosts the region's broadcasters and platforms, so the first signed catalogue built here is seen across the Gulf.
A playbook that works in one Gulf market travels: the same broadcasters, the same operators and the same Deaf-led institutions work across the GCC from Dubai, Riyadh and Doha — and each country keeps its own sign language, which is why these are separate pages.
Next step
Write to us — by form, by email, or with a signed or spoken video message. From there: an introductory call, an NDA, the Emirati market dossier, then terms.
Questions