Founder overview
Edidiong Ekong is a Nigerian entrepreneur, technology executive and author, and the CEO and co-founder of Talksign, an artificial intelligence company developing technology to improve communication between Deaf and hearing people.
His entrepreneurial work focuses on applying artificial intelligence to accessibility challenges, particularly the limitations of existing communication tools for Deaf and hard-of-hearing communities.
Ekong co-founded Talksign in November 2025 alongside AI engineer Kazi Mahathir Rahman. The company is developing proprietary AI models that translate between spoken languages and sign languages, aiming to make everyday communication more accessible without requiring users to depend on the immediate availability of an interpreter.
His interest in accessibility technology is rooted in personal experiences growing up in Nigeria. In a public LinkedIn post, Ekong explained that he had three close friends who were Deaf. His experiences communicating with them influenced his decision to learn American Sign Language and eventually teach it to other hearing people.
He also described witnessing the communication and employment challenges faced by Deaf people, experiences that contributed to his decision to build technology addressing these barriers.
In November 2025, he left his previous corporate role to focus on developing Talksign.
Professional background
Before establishing Talksign, Ekong built a career in business growth, technology entrepreneurship and digital product development.
His professional background includes leadership and growth-related roles at several technology companies, including Fireflies.ai, Boomplay, Alerzo, Klasha and Maplerad.
According to his professional biography published by the Product Management Festival, his experience spans fintech, e-commerce, digital entertainment and artificial intelligence. The biography also credits him with contributing to more than US$5 billion in cumulative revenue through his leadership roles at these companies.
His experience in scaling technology businesses provides a commercial and operational foundation for his current work in AI accessibility.
Building Talksign
As CEO and co-founder of Talksign, Ekong is leading the company’s effort to develop AI-powered tools that make communication between Deaf and hearing individuals more accessible.
The company’s initial foundational model, Talksign-1, was introduced in February 2026. It was developed to support bidirectional communication between American Sign Language and spoken or written language.
Talksign subsequently developed Palm and Echo, its sign-to-speech and speech-to-sign models.
Ekong has also highlighted the shortage of high-quality sign language datasets as a major obstacle to developing reliable sign language AI. This challenge informed the development of Talksign Marketplace, which connects sign language contributors, researchers and AI developers through a platform for creating and licensing sign language datasets.
His approach places particular emphasis on involving Deaf communities in the development of AI systems rather than treating them simply as end users.
Through Talksign, he is pursuing the broader goal of making communication more inclusive across healthcare, education, employment and public services.
Vision and contribution to the AI ecosystem
Ekong’s work represents an approach to AI development that focuses on accessibility and inclusion.
Rather than concentrating exclusively on mainstream AI applications, he is developing technology for a population that has historically been underserved by conventional communication platforms.
His work also highlights the importance of building AI systems around communities whose languages and communication methods are underrepresented in existing training datasets.
Through Talksign, Ekong is contributing to the development of assistive AI technology while highlighting the need for better sign language datasets, ethical data collection, and greater representation of Deaf communities in technology development.
Professional details
Full name: Edidiong Ekong
Position: CEO and Co-founder of Talksign
Industry: Artificial Intelligence, Technology Entrepreneurship and Accessibility Technology
Nationality connection: Nigerian
Company: Talksign
