Where Are They Now: Kavita Parmar, Founder of Word360

Since its launch in 2018, the LDC Top 50 Most Ambitious Business Leaders programme has celebrated hundreds of exceptional individuals. In this series, we reconnect with some of our alumni to discover where their growth journeys have taken them, the impact of being part of the programme, and what their ambitions look like today.

In the two short years since Word360 featured in The LDC Top 50, artificial intelligence has taken the world by storm. During that time, its founders, Kavita Parmar and Tiku Chauhan, whose language service business works with over 100 NHS trusts across the country, has invested £5m into proprietary AI translation tools.

“We will always need human translators for sensitive conversations but for non-complex conversations such as a routine blood test, patients can now access AI-assisted translation instantly. Our Wondaa AI is designed to support the conversations that should happen, but don’t.” Kavita explains. This new technology is already being received positively across the NHS and Word360 is forecasting a turnover of £25m this year.

“We’re expanding into the Middle East and the US,” she adds. “Our AI technology is supported by a pool of 16,000 professional linguists speaking 450 languages and dialects; no one else can offer the depth and quality that we do.”

What has been your greatest achievement over the past two years?

We help patients achieve better outcomes every day. As a former clinician, that cause is close to my heart. At the start of our journey, we were supporting 1,000 people a month and last year, that number rose to 100,000. We are also helping marginalised communities into meaningful work: many refugees and migrants in the UK are highly educated but their qualifications aren’t valid here. We help them use their language skills to climb the career ladder.

Tell me about your AI solution?

Our Wondaa AI interpreter is designed for healthcare and clinical settings. Nothing else like it currently exists elsewhere and it fills the gap where conversations are currently happening through tools like Google Translate or with friends and family, where the information shared can sometimes be inaccurate or sensitive. With Wondaa AI, patients and staff can communicate using the right healthcare technology, in the languages that are prevalent in local communities such as Urdu and Polish.

We have a further £5m investment planned over the coming year to build up our AI capabilities but the aim is to augment the experience provided by professional linguists. No one wants to have a complex or end-of-life conversation with a robot and empathy will remain the true differentiator for human translators.

What are the catalysts for growth?

It starts with our renowned customer service and industry leading technologies. Some contracts are in their 15^th year, which is unheard of. We have built a framework that will allow us to grow into new industries and territories, and we are projecting growth of 40% year-on-year for the next five years.