Everyday, Mental Health Connecticut staff works to positively impact the lives of people throughout the state. Whether through advocacy efforts, educational opportunities, direct services, or the information and referral line, staff works to improve mental health for all.
Staff members like Timothy Blonsky work to positively impact the lives of people in and outside of work. In 2005, Tim started working at MHC’s Robinson House, which is a residential program in West Hartford serving people with mental health conditions who are deaf. Tim has personal experience with being hearing impaired. He has about 30 percent hearing and, even with his hearing aid, can only hear at 70 percent resulting in him missing a lot in conversations. This experience made him an asset at Robinson House, and he held that position until 2007. In April, Tim returned to MHC to assist people who are deaf find and secure jobs through MHC’s supported employment program.
In addition, Tim serves as chief executive officer of Satto Technologies. In this position, he and his staff are in the early stages of developing C Speak, an application for smart phones and Google Glass that would translate spoken words to text during conversation. C speak would complement translator services, which cannot be everywhere all the time. Ultimately, C speak would enable people who are deaf or hard-of-hearing to more actively participate in the world around them on a daily basis.
Such technology could have a tremendous impact on the lives of people who are deaf or hard of hearing. It could minimize isolation, further engage the hearing community with the Deaf community, and broaden employment, education and community integration activities.
Tim and C speak were recently featured in an article in the Hartford Courant. To view the article, click here. To visit Satto Technologies’ Facebook Page, click here.
