InnoCaption’s Cristina Duarte Talks the CODA life, Accessibility Advocacy, Captions in interview

One of the coolest parts of getting to know the countless number of people I’ve interviewed over my career is discovering how much commonality we share as interviewer and interviewee. I’ve interviewed stutterers. I’ve interviewed people with low vision. I’ve interviewed people with cerebral palsy. All of these things are conditions I’ve coped with my entire life as a person with disabilities. As someone whose parents were fully Deaf and for whom American Sign Language is my first language, I’ve also interviewed my fair share of fellow CODAs over the years too.

Now I can add Cristina Duarte to the list of CODAs.

I connected with Duarte earlier this week over email to discuss her personal and professional life, especially her work at InnoCaption. The company makes the eponymous app, available on iOS and Android, which helps Deaf and hard-of-hearing people access phone calls. InnoCaption describes itself as building “real-time captioning technology makes phone calls easy and accessible for the Deaf and hard-of-hearing community.” My interview with Duarte, a lawyer and InnoCaption’s director of regulatory affairs, coincided with last month’s announcement of InnoCaption Video, an all-new app the company boasted will “reimagine” video calling for Deaf people.

“My parents were both born with profound hearing loss into hearing families, so they were not raised signing,” Duarte told me of her upbringing. “They communicate primarily by speaking, are strong lip readers, and learned to as young adults. Growing up, I saw their communication needs evolve from hearing aids to bilateral cochlear implants, and I understood early on that access is not a one-size-fits-all. Captions were always on in our home, and communication access was part of my life long before I had the language to describe it. It was not an abstract policy issue; it was whether my parents could fully participate in a conversation, understand an announcement, enjoy a movie, make a phone call, or be included in an important moment.”

It was these lived experiences which profoundly shaped Duarte’s outlook on the world. It’s “a big part of why I do this work,” she explained, adding she “[cares] deeply about making sure accessibility is not treated as an afterthought or a favor.”

“It’s access to information… it’s participation [and] it’s dignity,” Duarte said.

At their core, captions are “powerful” because they enable Deaf and hard-of-hearing people to “receive information directly,” according to Duarte. They instill greater feelings of independence. They help exert agency and autonomy. They lessen reliance on others, be they family, friends, or even trained interpreters, to make sense of the world unbuilt for them. Deaf and hard-of-hearing people want to communicate too!

“Captions are an equalizer,” Duarte said. “They help ensure that the message being communicated can actually be received by the people it is intended to reach.”

Duarte went on to say she believes captions—good ones, at least—are effectively egalitarian, insofar as they are beneficial to neurodivergent people, non-native speakers, and even anyone existing in noisy environments. “I’m hearing, and I cannot count how many times I have been in an airport, on a plane, in a crowded event space, or listening to a bad loudspeaker and thought, ‘I wish this were captioned,’” she said.

Duarte shared an anecdote about friends who, after spending time at her house, went home and enabled captions on their television(s) because they experienced them and felt how useful they are, even as people who ostensibly have no need for captions. Duarte said her friends have reported back and said “we just always have them on.”

“That’s the thing about accessibility,” Duarte said. “When done well, it often benefits far more people than the group it was originally designed to serve.”

Professionally speaking, Duarte, who’s worked in the space since 2015, said advocacy in the accessibility space is often, as ever, “an uphill battle,” telling me while specific issues change over time, the one constant is there always are “new challenges to address.” She works closely with the Federal Communications Commission, or the FCC, in her role at InnoCaption, specifically with people in the Disability Rights Office, the Consumer and Governmental Affairs Bureau, and Commissioners’ offices. These officials, Duarte said to me, "care deeply about accessibility and are willing to meet, listen, ask questions, and understand the real-world impact of policy decisions.”

When asked whether the current political climate makes her avocational work easier or harder, Duarte said she wouldn’t characterize it as a binary choice. Instead, she explained the work is evergreen and “ongoing” and “requires persistence, education, and a willingness to keep showing up.” Moreover, she acknowledged that while political climates definitely influence “priorities, timing, and the broader regulatory environment” but emphasized the need for access is omnipresent. In this case, it means Deaf and hard-of-hearing people will always need better and more inclusive communicative tools, with Duarte saying they “need reliable services [and] they still need policies that recognize accessibility as essential infrastructure, not a luxury.”

A particular pain point in terms of access is in healthcare settings, Duarte said. She’s heard horror stories about Deaf people going to the emergency room and facing virtually impenetrable barriers to proper communication; some people request captions yet are given an interpreter—even though they don’t sign. Likewise, relying on family or friends to interpret aren’t “appropriate” all the time due to privacy. Even doctors, Duarte said, have refused to speak with relay service operators under the mistaken presumption doing so would be a HIPAA violation and get them in hot water.

“That is not correct, but the misunderstanding created real barriers,” she said.

“We have come a long way in terms of accessibility options, but there is still a lot of education and advocacy needed,” Duarte said. “Access is not a one-size-fits-all. People need different tools, and those preferences should be respected.”

Looking towards the future, Duarte told me she hopes accessibility becomes “more proactive and less reactive,” adding she would “love to see more organizations build accessibility into their planning from the beginning—not because they are afraid of legal liability, but because they genuinely want the people they serve to be included.” As to captions, she wants work to continue to “broaden the way people understand captions.” Captions, she stressed, are “not just a tool for one community in one setting”; they are a bonafide communicative tool which, Duarte told me, “[makes] information more accessible across many parts of life” from school to the workplace to tmeetings to the doctor’s office to content consumption and everyday conversation.

“For me, this work is personal, but it is also practical. Life is better when more people are included. Communication is better when people can receive information directly. And our communities are stronger when access is treated as part of the foundation, not as an exception,” Duarte said. “I know there will always be more work to do, but I remain hopeful because I have seen what happens when people learn, listen, and make the effort to get it right. Sometimes the barrier is not unwillingness; it is lack of understanding. And that is where advocacy and education can make a real difference.”