ASL Aspire, co-founded by Mona Jawad (PhD ’27), brings a game-based approach to teaching American Sign Language for STEM concepts through interactive lessons. The startup won funding through the Skandalaris Venture Competition in 2023, received an Arch Grant in 2024, and recently partnered with the St. Louis Science Center for its first-ever Deaf Day event.
The following article by Cheryl Baehr was published in theSTL on November 18, 2025.
Mona Jawad and Ayesha Kazi founded ASL Aspire to bring a game-based approach to teaching American Sign Language for STEM concepts through interactive lessons.
When Mona Jawad and Ayesha Kazi began researching the challenges facing Deaf students in STEM fields in 2020, they came across a startling realization: Just four publicly accessible American Sign Language (ASL) signs existed for the 118 elements of the periodic table. In many ways, this was shocking to them; ASL is a thriving, robust language, and the periodic table is one of the most fundamental constructs in the sciences.
However, when put into context of Deaf students’ historical disempowerment, it made sense — and filled Jawad and Kazi with a sense of mission.
“ASL had been kept out of scientific spaces… and though things have changed, the delay has meant that new STEM terms do not yet exist in ASL,” Jawad says. “It’s difficult for (Deaf) students and teachers to communicate these concepts in class. We talked with educators about how devastating this is in their classrooms, and we wanted to do something because we knew these students needed a chance to make their potential come out.”
This particular example, taken together with their research into the challenges for Deaf students in STEM and Jawad’s lived experience as the sister of someone who is Deaf, inspired the pair to found ASL Aspire, a game-based approach to K-12 STEM education that allows students to learn new ASL vocabulary through interactive lessons.
A 2024 Arch Grants recipient, ASL Aspire uses visually rich lessons created exclusively by Deaf scientists and gaming professionals to teach students signs and concepts so that they can connect to the content in a fun, low-pressure classroom environment. Currently, ASL Aspire is used in three school districts (mostly in the Chicago area, but also in Missouri, although the founders can’t share specific district names) and reaches 1,200 students.
Jawad and Kazi never imagined that their research would result in a full-fledged company and career path when they first began the project as engineering undergraduates at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. As Kazi explains, the company began because they simply wanted to learn more and pursue work that had a meaningful impact on people’s lives.
“I have always wanted there to be a personal connection and for whatever I ended up doing to have impact,” Kazi says. “I never wanted to work for big tech, but instead, wanted to be front-facing with customers and know that every line of code I write is affecting somebody somewhere.”
“We Felt Like We Had to Do Something”
Jawad and Kazi saw that impact immediately, as their research took them into classrooms where they were struck by the lack of resources available to Deaf students, despite their teachers’ best efforts.
“Seeing the lack of resources gave an emotional connection to it all,” Kazi says. “We felt like we had to do something (because) we see this injustice in front of us. We were privileged enough to have resources in our native language to become whatever we wanted to be, and these children are deprived of that because of systemic barriers.”
The ASL Aspire platform is designed as an app and consists of an arcade of video games that teach a variety of ASL STEM concepts to students. At times, this is a matter of incorporating already existing ASL signs into lessons. Other times, it means working with scientists who are creating new signs in real time.
One of those scientists, Dr. Anne Logan, who, in addition to being a PhD in horticulture (with an emphasis in viticulture and enology) serves as ASL Aspire’s accessibility and education manager. As the first Deaf PhD in horticulture in the world, Logan knows firsthand the challenges Deaf students face and is thrilled to be a part of helping to reduce those challenges so that more can pursue their dreams in STEM.
“I want to see more d/Deaf (people) entering these fields so that’s why I want to help others,” Logan says. “I have been advocating for d/Deaf people my entire life and am very involved with being the voice for the voiceless because there are so many d/Deaf people who end up being incredibly frustrated and disempowered with challenges such as language and assumptions. I have the unique ability to code-switch and understand the nuances of both the deaf and hearing worlds and educate people accordingly.”
According to Jawad and Kazi, much of that disempowerment — and the resulting lack of STEM-related ASL signs — has to do with the historical emphasis on oralism in Deaf education. The theory, which was the dominant educational theory in the 1800s and continued well into the 20th Century, centered around the idea that Deaf students should communicate using oral speech and lip-reading, as opposed to manualism, which is the use of sign language.
Although this has changed, it has cast a long shadow; scientists are furiously working to create new signs to make up for the historical lack and keep up with emerging concepts. For students who can access these new signs — typically those in higher levels of education — it’s made a tremendous difference in their ability to communicate and understand STEM concepts. However, that information has not trickled down into younger students, who ASL Aspire is serving.
“We are at a point in time where words are being created and ASL is being advocated for, but the problem is, kids are not getting access to this language,” Jawad says. “While people at the college level can go to forums, watch videos, and use these new signs in their daily lives, kids are not learning at the level they need to be.”
Although students will oftentimes turn to spelling out words through fingerspelling letters, Jawad, Kazi, and Logan all emphasize how much better it is to learn concepts through word signs.
“d/Deaf learners, especially those who use ASL, learn visually, and once there is a sign for that concept, it tends to stick for life,” Logan says. “Fingerspelling can convey the concept but it does not have the same lasting impact; the learner can’t picture it whereas a sign can instantly be pictured and remembered.”
“Kids Love Games”
Jawad and Kazi have been thrilled by the positive feedback ASL Aspire has received from both educators and students. This is no surprise to them; the idea for the game-based model came from teachers.
“When interviewing teachers at the start of this, they told us the one thing that made students light up in class was being able to go play games on computers,” Jawad says. “Kids love games because it’s a way they can explore education in a low-stakes environment. There’s not going to be a big red grade on a paper, or they won’t have the feeling that somebody is watching them. Instead, it brings out a natural competitive and exciting experience in them.”
Both avid gamers themselves, Jawad and Kazi knew how important it was for ASL Aspire to connect with kids in a way that felt authentic and fun. Because they drew upon many of their own favorites games when they were younger, they’ve been heartened to see that these same concepts are resonating with ASL Aspire users.
“We started building this in classrooms with teachers and students nitpicking every single thing,” Kazi says. “The feedback has been really honest, especially from the kids. They’ve all been really amazing and supportive because this is a need we are fulfilling. It’s not a vitamin; it’s a painkiller. They need this as much as we want to continue providing it, and they have been loving the app and are continuing to incorporate it into their learning.”
Jawad and Kazi are commonly asked to provide ASL Aspire games that cover new subjects. They would also like to eventually get into pre-kindergarten, in addition to the K-12 grades they already serve.
These expansion goals are the reason the ASL Aspire team was thrilled to receive an Arch Grant in 2024, as well as WashU Olin’s BIG IdeaBounce’s $50,000 prize that same year. With the additional funding and support both awards provide, Jawad and Kazi believe they can achieve their goal of getting their program into the hands of every student who wants it.
“Such a Wonderful Community”
Both the Arch Grant and BIG IdeaBounce awards were part of the reason that Jawad and Kazi — Champaign and Milwaukee natives, respectively — chose to locate ASL Aspire’s headquarters in St. Louis. They believe that, beyond the funding they provide, the investments show the region’s commitment to supporting entrepreneurs like them through everything from grant-writing and technological support to networking and fellowship.
“The Arch Grant is one of the best experiences a company can have, and we are so grateful to have received it; we can’t emphasize enough how impactful it has been,” Jawad says. “The St. Louis entrepreneurship community has been extremely supportive of us and has helped us reach a lot of our goals. It’s been really helpful to have such camaraderie with other founders.”
However, those entrepreneurial supports are not the only reason Jawad and Kazi felt that St. Louis was the right home for ASL Aspire. Not only is Jawad currently pursuing a PhD in speech and hearing sciences at WashU; the pair also point to the region’s wealth of world-class science-related institutions, such as the Saint Louis Science Center and the Saint Louis Zoo, which offer programming geared toward Deaf individuals. Jawad and Kazi even partnered with the Science Center to host its first-ever Deaf Day event on Saturday, September 20, 2025. ASL Aspire hosted a table at the event, including offering a laptop with the company’s games for guests to explore and play.
Jawad and Kazi also see Missouri’s long history of pioneering work in speech and hearing sciences as creating an environment in which they knew their company could thrive.
“One of the biggest draws for us to St. Louis, beyond the fact that there is such a big research community around speech and hearing science, is because there is a huge Deaf community in Missouri,” Jawad says. “There are so many schools, programs, and organizations for Deaf individuals that we felt like we could make a big impact here by nature of getting connected with those. There is such a wonderful community here focused on empowering people of all abilities. We loved that spirit.”
In the three years since it officially became a company, although it started as just a handful of researchers, the organization has grown to 20 employees and boasts a robust network of scientists who continue to add new programming daily. Jawad and Kazi are confident that they can continue this trajectory with the support of St. Louis’ entrepreneurship community behind them so that they can achieve their goals of empowering Deaf students to realize that they can achieve anything they dream of in the STEM fields.
“I think the Deaf community has everything they need to be able to lead themselves and excel and make these things happen, so it’s crucial that they are the ones leading this conversation,” Jawad says. “We can help and be facilitators and allies. We are trying to put the spotlight on scientists who are doing amazing things as Deaf individuals. They have their own culture and pride — and they should. This organization is a way to try to bridge the world between the hearing and the Deaf community and show what we can do when we work together but ultimately their voices are most important. The power should be in the hands of the people who are going to be impacted by what we are doing.”
Dr. Logan echoes this perspective. “d/Deaf people have been disempowered and oppressed by those around them and were often told no or that the sciences are just too hard,” Logan says. “It’s not until the last 20 years or so when more and more deaf scientists emerged in the public sphere — and people are starting to see that d/Deaf people truly can do anything.”
Editor’s Note: Dr. Anne Logan requested her quotes include the formatting “d/Deaf” to be inclusive of all people.
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