British-Ghanaian Entrepreneur Danny Manu: The Brain behind the Earbuds that can translate 40 Languages

Innovation has helped humanity overcome challenges since the inception of time. Language and communication are not exempt as technologies are now integrated into languages. Through these innovations, communication barriers are reduced. Danny Manu, a British-Ghanaian entrepreneur, contributed to this area by developing earbuds that can translate into 40 languages. And in recognition of the innovation, Google recognised his contributions to science, arts, and culture.

The earbuds called Click translate into 40 languages and, through its operating system, allowing its users to call, text, convert text-to-speech and speech-to-text. Without worrying about the internet, users connect with nearly two billion people. Also, the earbuds connect with smartphones and learn the language and at the same time provide translations to the listener.

Who is Danny Manu?

The 33-year-old innovator was born and bred in the United Kingdom to Ghanaian parents. He studied at Oxford Brookes University in England and worked at Quanta Networks, a data and cloud solutions company. Later, he moved on and started MyManu in 2014 and another company in the middle of COVID-19 and called it Medybird.

The company is an innovative integrated medical and industrial personal protective equipment (PPE) manufacturer. Over time, it has provided more than 500 million PPE to countries affected by the pandemic. He described himself as an ambitious, hardworking engineer who likes to provide solutions to improve people’s lives on his website. The British-Ghanaian inventor in 2014 established Mymanu company and produced earbuds that translate 40 languages through the platform.

The Journey in Building Mymanu

Mymanu company is an innovative manufacturer and designer of smart consumer electronics that enhance people’s experience through the power of sound. The idea of MyManu was conceived from his daughter’s phone falling in the bathtub.

He said, “At the time, I was working as an Aerospace Engineer, but I realised that my passions lay elsewhere. I decided then that I wanted to help people lead easier and more connected lives, and I knew I had what it takes”. This propelled him to create a water-resistant voice-controlled Bluetooth speaker. He, therefore, named this after his daughter Gabby and founded his startup. 

The journey, according to him, has been challenging. He said, “Like all the other ethnic minority-run businesses within the UK, I had a hard time getting the funding and financial support from banks and government-funded programmes that I needed”.

To fund his company, he used his savings and crowdfunding. He said, “Most of my funding was through either personal savings, own sales, or money I had raised on crowdfunding sites. If you truly believe in your product and ideas, you shouldn’t have too much trouble convincing other people to believe in them too”. He further raised £5,000,000 on sites like Kickstarter and Indiegogo. The earbuds “Click” was produced under the company name MyManu.

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