Bangladesh · Open market · Operating partnership
Access on this page: Signed: Bangla 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 Bangladeshi 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
Bangladesh's sign language is Bangla Sign Language, declared an official language by the government in 2009, given a national day — 7 February — by an inter-ministerial decision on 26 January 2012, and defined in statute by the Rights and Protection of Persons with Disabilities Act 2013, whose section 16 grants the right to sign language as a first language. The Society of the Deaf and Sign Language Users, founded in 2008, represents signers and has campaigned for qualified interpreters on television.
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
defines Bangla Sign Language as the Deaf community's own language; section 16 guarantees education in a convenient manner and the right to take sign language as a first language.
the government declared BdSL an official language in 2009; an inter-ministerial meeting on 26 January 2012 designated 7 February as Bangla Sign Language Day.
the signers' organisation campaigning for qualified interpreters on national television.
Obligated buyers: public and private institutions under the 2013 Act, the national broadcaster, and the education system's duty under section 16.
The gap
Bangladeshi compliance is recognition without supply. The 2013 Act and the 2009 declaration give the language status; the national broadcaster carries interpreters whose competence the Deaf community itself questions; and the right to learn in sign language depends on the school. In a country of more than 170 million people, the supply of qualified signers is the whole constraint — and the reason a paid creator platform scales where interpreter booking cannot.
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 language has had status since 2009 and statute since 2013; what it has never had is enough qualified signers. A partner who trains and pays Deaf creators in Bangla Sign Language builds the supply the law assumed, in one of the most populous countries on this site.
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 Bangladeshi market dossier, then terms.
Questions