I tried to make DevFest Ireland accessible - and ended up building a SaaS

The email I couldn't ignore A few months into organising DevFest Ireland 2025, I received messages from a couple of deaf developers asking if they could attend. Not in a vague "looks interesting" kind of way. They wanted to come. They wanted to sit in the talks, meet people, be part of it properly. And the question they asked was completely fair: would there be an Irish Sign Language interpreter? I didn't have a solid answer for them at the time. I thought it would be one of those things that would take a bit of organising, a few emails, some budget approval, and then get sorted. That was my naive version of it anyway. It turned out not to be like that at all. Trying to make it work Once I started looking properly, I ran into the shortage almost immediately. There simply are not enough ISL interpreters available, especially for full day events. Availability is tight, booking needs to happen early, and the logistics are harder than most people realise from the outside. For a conference,