For Seema Kharad, a visually impaired student in Pune, finding study material was not as simple as opening a book. Many of the books and academic documents she needed were unavailable as audiobooks, creating a barrier between her and the information required for her studies.
Yogen Ghodke, an AI solutions engineer based in New York, saw a practical way forward. He built ListenToMe, an app that converts study material into audio, then worked with Kharad as she tested early versions and shared feedback. In a few weeks, the project moved from a focused accessibility solution toward a tool attracting users from several countries.
Turning Documents Into Something Students Can Hear
ListenToMe uses optical character recognition, or OCR, to extract text from documents. Text-to-speech technology then converts that text into audio, allowing users to hear material that might otherwise be difficult to access.
The process begins on a phone. Users can upload PDFs, photos of documents, handwritten notes, and other supported file formats, giving the app material from multiple sources instead of limiting it to ready-made audiobooks. That flexibility matters for students who need specific academic content that has not been published in an audio format.
Ghodke spent around two months working with Kharad to incorporate her feedback into the app. Her testing helped expose problems that a technical build alone might miss, including errors in how information is read aloud.
“Recently, for example, we had a problem where figure numbers were not being pronounced correctly, so instead of saying 100, it was saying one zero zero,” Ghodke said.
That feedback loop remains part of how ListenToMe develops. Ghodke experimented with several open-source AI models, but found that they required further fine-tuning. He relies on user feedback to identify errors, especially in languages he does not understand.
A Multilingual Tool With Users Around the World
ListenToMe supports around 30 languages, including English, Marathi, Hindi, Tamil, Telugu, Assamese, and Nepali. Its reach has already moved beyond India, with users from countries including the US, Azerbaijan, and Tunisia.
One request pushed the language list further. After a user from Iran asked for Persian support, Ghodke added it to the app.
“I can add support for any language,” Ghodke said.
The app can also serve needs beyond academic work. Users can turn newspapers into audio and translate content, expanding ListenToMe from a study aid into a broader document-access tool.
At the time of the interview, around 1,600 people had signed up, and about 1,000 had submitted documents. The app had been publicly available for three or four weeks, yet it could see around 200 new users a day.
Building Access While Keeping Costs Under Control
ListenToMe is currently free, with a daily processing limit of 250 pages. Ghodke is considering a plan priced at around ₹149 that would allow users to process up to 500 pages a day.
Those limits are designed to stop a small number of users from consuming excessive resources. Ghodke is funding the operating costs himself and runs the service on a Mac Mini, with the current processing cost estimated at around one US cent per page.
He wants to reduce that cost to ₹1 for every 100 pages, a goal that could help the service handle more documents while keeping access affordable. The challenge is not only building the conversion system; it is also creating a sustainable service around the technology.
Ghodke’s interest in accessibility grew from provisions he saw in the US, including wheelchair ramps, accessible parking, and button-operated doors. Those features showed him how design can remove barriers, and ListenToMe applies that idea to study materials and digital documents.
Privacy and storage are also part of the service’s current operation. Uploaded PDFs are stored on Ghodke’s server while audio is generated. Original documents are deleted after processing, and generated audio files remain for a few days before they are automatically deleted.
From Personal Project to Wider Education Access
ListenToMe now sits at an important turning point. It has early users, multilingual support, and a clear need to address, but Ghodke plans to formalise the business, raise funds, and hire people to improve the models.
He also aims to reach more universities, student organisations, and NGOs. Those connections could bring the app to more students who face the same shortage of accessible material that Kharad encountered in Pune.
The central idea remains direct: take documents that students already need, convert them into audio, and improve the results through feedback. As ListenToMe grows, its next advances will depend on stronger models, lower processing costs, and continued input from the people using it.
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