Mexico · Open market · Operating partnership
Access on this page: Signed: Lengua de Señas Mexicana — 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 Mexican 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
Mexico's sign language is Lengua de Señas Mexicana (LSM) — recognised in law in 2005 and, since 30 May 2011, a national language and part of the nation's linguistic heritage under Article 14 of the General Law for the Inclusion of Persons with Disabilities. In March 2020 the Coalición de Personas Sordas won an emergency amparo that put interpreters on the federal COVID briefings within a day.
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
published DOF 30 May 2011: LSM is officially recognised as a national language and part of the linguistic heritage of the Mexican nation.
DOF 10 June 2005: the first federal recognition of LSM as one of the nation's languages; superseded by the 2011 law.
since 2014: television concessionaires must provide subtitling, Spanish dubbing or LSM in at least one segment of one of their highest-audience news programmes.
filed 16 March 2020 by Erik Arellano Hernández for the Coalición de Personas Sordas; suspensión de plano granted: LSM interpreters at health-ministry press conferences, accessible COVID information and identification of hospitals with LSM support, within 24 hours.
Obligated buyers: television concessionaires under Article 161, federal and state governments under the General Law and the 2020 amparo's reasoning on emergency information, and public services under the General Law's accessibility chapter.
The gap
Mexican compliance is a legal minimum: Article 161 of the 2014 broadcasting law requires subtitles, dubbing or LSM in at least one segment of one high-audience news programme per concessionaire. The 2020 amparo showed the state can deliver LSM overnight when a judge requires it — and that even then the interpreter's box was first smaller than the rules demand. Film, streaming and services carry no duty. Subtitles assume reading fluency in Spanish; LSM is the Deaf community's first language.
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 2020 amparo is precedent that the absence of LSM in official information endangers lives, and it is cited by the community in every dispute since. Article 161's 'one segment' is a floor that every broadcaster already meets and none exceeds. A partner who can supply LSM beyond the segment arrives with the law, the precedent and the demand already in place.
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 Mexican market dossier, then terms.
Questions