We built what the industry wouldn't
Designed by a healthcare professional, built in collaboration with first responders. vitalvoice exists because waiting 3-5 minutes for an interpreter was never acceptable.
The frustration that started it all
It was 3 PM on a Tuesday. An elderly woman sat in front of me, clutching her chest, eyes wide with fear. She spoke only Mandarin. I spoke none.
I dialed the interpreter line. Hold music. Four minutes of it. Four minutes while she watched me—helpless—waiting for someone to help us understand each other.
When the interpreter finally connected, there was background noise. Static. Muffled voices. The interpreter asked me to repeat myself. Twice. The patient's eyes grew more fearful.
“I watched her trust evaporate.
And I knew I had to fix this.”
Dr. Kory Kindle, DPT
Founder & CEO, vitalvoice
He needed an engineer who understood speed
Not just any developer—someone who had already wrestled with real-time streaming, sub-second latency, and AI at scale. Ishan had spent years building exactly that: low-latency livestreaming infrastructure and AI-powered applications. The kind of experience you can't fake.
Phone Interpreter
The traditional way—and its problems.
- 3-5 minute wait on hold
- Background noise, inconsistent quality
- Requires cell signal
vitalvoice
What they built together.
- <5 seconds to connect
- Auto-detects language instantly
- Works offline, even in dead zones
Kory brought the domain expertise—years of watching the system fail patients. Ishan brought the technical chops—years of building real-time, low-latency AI systems. Together they built the first version, showed it to firefighters, and listened: "Can it work offline? Can it auto-detect language?"
So Ishan rebuilt it from scratch. Every feature in vitalvoice exists because someone in the field asked for it. That's not a marketing line—it's how the product was made.
And then something happened
The tool Kory built for himself started helping other people. A lot of them.
57+
Languages
95%
Would recommend
<5s
Connection time
iOS App Rating
The ones behind it all
Domain expertise meets deep technical skill. One who lived the problem, one who had the tools to solve it. United by a belief that language should never cost lives.
Kory Kindle
CEO & Co-founder
DPT, Doctor of Physical Therapy
The elderly woman with chest pain changed everything. After that day, Kory couldn't stop thinking about how many patients were falling through the cracks. He knew the problem intimately—he just needed to find someone who could solve it.
"Every patient I couldn't communicate with haunted me. I had to find a way to fix this."
Connect on LinkedIn
Ishan Ahuja
CTO & Co-founder
Before vitalvoice, Ishan built Clapstream—wrangling livestreamed media with sub-second latency at scale. When Kory described the interpreter problem, Ishan recognized it instantly: same technical challenge, life-or-death stakes. He built vitalvoice from scratch, then rebuilt it entirely when field testing revealed what first responders actually needed.
"I'd spent years optimizing for milliseconds in streaming. This was the first time those milliseconds could actually save someone's life."
Connect on LinkedInGuided by people who've run the calls
EMS leaders who keep us honest about what the field actually needs—and pressure-test every decision against real-world response.
Eric Tade
Fire & EMS Operations Advisor
Assistant Chief & former Chief, Denver Fire Department
Chief Tade keeps vitalvoice honest about what crews actually need on a call. He works directly with the agencies running our pilots—shaping implementation, training, and the feedback loop that decides what we build next. His job is to make sure what we ship survives first contact with a real scene.
Dr. Gregory Gilbert
EMS Medical Advisor
EMS Medical Director, San Mateo County · Board-Certified in EMS & Emergency Medicine
Dr. Gilbert pressure-tests vitalvoice against the realities of EMS—field workflows, documentation requirements, and patient care. He guides how we roll out with new agencies and where vitalvoice earns its place in the field, so it fits the way crews already work instead of asking them to work around it.
Interested in joining our mission?
Get in TouchThe story continues
Word spread fast
What started as one healthcare provider's frustration caught the attention of fire chiefs. Then more. Then more.
Colorado takes notice
Adams County Fire and Rescue and Brighton Fire and Rescue become our first pilot partners—putting vitalvoice in the hands of real crews on real calls.
California calls
Fairfield Fire Department joins—proof that the need isn't regional. It's everywhere.
California calls
Fairfield Fire Department joins—proof that the need isn't regional. It's everywhere.
Colorado goes all-in
Word travels between departments. Four more Colorado agencies put vitalvoice on their rigs—turning early interest into a regional standard.
California grows
South San Joaquin (Tracy Fire) joins Fairfield—proof the need keeps spreading, one crew telling the next.
California grows
South San Joaquin (Tracy Fire) joins Fairfield—proof the need keeps spreading, one crew telling the next.
The momentum is building. These partnerships validate our technology in diverse real-world environments—and we're just getting started.
The obsessions that guide us
These aren't corporate values. They're the lessons Kory learned watching patients suffer—and the promises we made to never let it happen again.
Every second is someone's emergency
We obsess over latency because the difference between 5 seconds and 5 minutes can be the difference between life and death.
That's why we built offline mode—so dead zones never slow you down.
Built for the worst day of someone's life
Our users can't afford for us to fail. We build for the worst conditions—no signal, high stress, critical moments.
If it works there, it works everywhere.
Co-designed with the people who use it
Our CEO is a healthcare provider who lived the problem. Every feature comes from real conversations with healthcare workers and first responders.
They tell us what they need, we build it, they test it.
A Spanish-speaking patient with abdominal pain
“Incredibly efficient—
more so than a traditional
language line.”
The entire process was streamlined. I got the information I needed that much quicker—and I was able to apply it that much faster.
A Paramedic
Adams County Fire Rescue, Colorado
95%
Would recommend
5-Star iOS Rating
Somewhere right now, a patient is waiting
Waiting for someone to understand them. Waiting for help that's stuck behind a hold line. You can change that.