Voice Translation App NEED2SAY Breaks Language Barriers to Improve Construction Job Site Safety and Save Lives

Important software application helps reduce construction site injuries, increases safety, and saves lives.

ORANGE, CA, UNITED STATES, July 15, 2025 /EINPresswire.com/ -- In high-risk industries where clear communication can mean the difference between life and death, a Southern California startup is helping companies bridge a dangerous gap: language. NEED2SAY, founded by former ESL instructor Oscar Garcia, is an AI-powered, real-time voice translation platform tailored for job sites in construction, manufacturing, logistics, and healthcare. With support from Chapman University’s Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics, NEED2SAY is helping frontline workers and safety managers overcome miscommunications that too often lead to injuries and fatalities.

Garcia, who has worked from the Leatherby Center nearly every day for the past year, credits the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Chapman with helping accelerate his company’s growth. “The Leatherby Center changed everything for us,” said Garcia. “I spent years thinking Orange County didn’t have a real startup ecosystem—then I walked into a pitch event and found the resources, mentors, and collaborators I’d been searching for. You don’t even have to be a Chapman student to benefit -all of these amazing resources are open to anyone in Orange County who wants to start a business.”

Since joining the Center, NEED2SAY has recruited two Chapman students, gained guidance from professors and business leaders, and connected with investors and advisors from across the region. With continued support from the Leatherby Center, the company is now scaling across multiple sectors and preparing for seed funding.

Garcia’s inspiration for NEED2SAY is deeply personal. Raised in Mexico, he watched his father cross the border to work in the U.S. for more than 30 years—never learning English, often working grueling overnight shifts in cleaning jobs. It wasn’t until Garcia moved to the U.S. as a graduate student that he understood the challenges his father had faced, including dangerous jobsites, language isolation, and a system not built for immigrants.

“My father brought us to the U.S. because he was trying to protect us from unsafe neighborhoods and from broken schools. But language barriers made everything harder for him, and I wanted to change that for others,” Garcia said.

After nearly 15 years teaching English to adult learners across the U.S. and Mexico—including at UC Irvine, Stanford, and the University of Alabama—Garcia saw a critical flaw in traditional language education. Popular platforms like Duolingo weren’t designed for the realities of the job site. “Workers didn’t need grammar rules. They needed to know how to say, ‘watch out,’ ‘this machine is dangerous,’ or ‘move to safety’ in real time,” said Garcia.

That need led him to launch NEED2SAY in 2019. By 2020, the company had zeroed in on the construction industry, where more than 70% of workers are Latino and OSHA reports thousands of fatalities and injuries every year.

Garcia and his team interviewed safety managers and construction executives and found that many were struggling to communicate effectively with non-English-speaking workers. Some relied on costly interpreters, while others used Google Translate—tools ill-suited to the Spanglish-heavy, slang-laden language of construction.

NEED2SAY’s patented technology fills the gap. Using Bluetooth-enabled voice translation, the platform enables safety managers to speak directly with workers in their native language accounting for accents and dialects from rural Mexico to Alabama. Every exchange is documented, providing legal protection and OSHA compliance.

Since the company launched a successful pilot in 2022, adoption has grown rapidly and entirely through word of mouth. “We haven’t spent a dollar on marketing,” said Garcia. “But companies are coming to us because they see how dangerous the communication gap really is.”

With demand rising, Garcia and his team of seven, including two Chapman students, are focused on two critical milestones over the next year: achieving SOC 2 certification to meet enterprise-level compliance requirements and raising capital to hire additional staff, launch their first formal marketing campaign, and scale into new industries.

The company is already expanding beyond construction into manufacturing, food processing, logistics, and healthcare—industries where safety, efficiency, and clear communication are equally vital.
Garcia is now a vocal advocate for Orange County’s growing entrepreneurial network. After years of feeling isolated as a founder, he now serves as a mentor to others. “Don’t wait five years like I did,” said Garcia. “The resources are here if you’re a founder in Orange County.”

About NEED2SAY
Founded in 2019 by Oscar Garcia, NEED2SAY is an AI-powered voice translation platform designed to improve safety and communication in high-risk workplaces. With patented technology that adapts to regional dialects and industry-specific terminology, NEED2SAY empowers companies to overcome language barriers and protect their workers—one conversation at a time.
To learn more, visit www.need2say.com.

About Chapman University
Founded in 1861, Chapman University is a nationally ranked private university in Orange, California, about 30 miles south of Los Angeles. Chapman serves nearly 10,000 undergraduate and graduate students, with a 12:1 student-to-faculty ratio. Students can choose from over 100 areas of study within 11 colleges for a personalized education. Chapman is categorized by the Carnegie Classification as an R2 “high research activity” institution. Students at Chapman learn directly from distinguished world-class faculty including Nobel Prize winners, MacArthur fellows, published authors and Academy Award winners. The campus has produced a Rhodes Scholar, been named a top producer of Fulbright Scholars, and hosts a chapter of Phi Beta Kappa, the nation’s oldest and most prestigious honor society. Chapman also includes the Harry and Diane Rinker Health Science Campus in Irvine. The university features the No. 4 film school and No. 66 business school in the U.S. Learn more about Chapman University: www.chapman.edu.

About The Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics
The vision of the Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship is to inspire, educate, and empower the next generation of talent to have an entrepreneurial mindset. To teach students how to innovate and take risks, whether they are starting their own venture, or working inside a corporation. Through our curriculum and our incubator, we provide hands-on experience to the next generation of talent, teaching them how to develop, scale, and launch their own ventures as future global citizens in the world economy. Ralph W. Leatherby Center for Entrepreneurship and Business Ethics | Chapman University

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