Hong Kong · Open market · Operating partnership
Access on this page: Signed: Hong Kong 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 Hong Kong 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
Hong Kong's sign language is Hong Kong Sign Language (HKSL), not an official language under the Basic Law; a Legislative Council motion to recognise it failed on 11 January 2017. The Hong Kong Association of the Deaf, run by Deaf people since 1976, is the oldest Deaf-led organisation in the city, and the Chinese University's Centre for Sign Linguistics and Deaf Studies documents the language.
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
sign language interpretation on Cantonese news programmes on the Pearl channel each day, effective 3 July 2018; nine months' lead time; TVB cited the limited supply of qualified interpreters.
sign language interpretation on Cantonese news for more than 25 minutes each day; subtitles on programmes between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m.; the Consumer Council's submission asks for more programme types, more minutes and audio description.
enacted 1995: discrimination on the ground of disability, including hearing impairment, is unlawful across employment, education, goods and services.
moved by Leung Yiu-chung; not carried.
Obligated buyers: domestic free-television licensees under Communications Authority conditions, service providers under the Disability Discrimination Ordinance, and government departments under the Rehabilitation Programme Plan.
The gap
Hong Kong's compliance is a licence condition, precisely bounded: free-television licensees must sign Cantonese news for more than 25 minutes a day and subtitle programmes between 7 p.m. and 11 p.m. The Communications Authority imposed the news condition on TVB in October 2017 over the broadcaster's objection that the city lacked interpreters. In the 2025 licence renewal the Consumer Council asked for more programme types, more minutes and audio description. Everything outside the condition — film, streaming, services, the rest of the schedule — carries no duty at all.
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 2025 licence renewal put sign language, subtitling and audio description on the regulator's table with the Consumer Council asking for expansion. A partner who can supply signed and described programming at scale answers the objection TVB raised in 2017 — that the interpreters do not exist — and arrives while the conditions are being rewritten.
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 Hong Kong market dossier, then terms.
Questions