Remarkable, Author at Remarkable

Remarkable Insights: Minnie Baragwanath

Posted on August 24, 2023 by Remarkable

Transcript

[00:16] VIV
Coming up on Remarkable Insights…

[00:19] MINNIE
We had this announcement at the launch of our organization announcing that we had been granted a million dollars a year to set up this social change organization and I remember the entire room just went absolutely silent.

[00:34] VIV
Stick around to see if I ask for a small loan.

[00:37] VIV
Hi everyone I’m Viv Mullan, host of Remarkable Insights, a podcast about disability driving innovation. Minnie Baragwanath joins us to tell us why being human is the greatest innovation in technology today.

Minnie, welcome to Sydney. Thank you so much for coming here and joining me today. How are you?

[00:54] MINNIE
Oh, look I’m fantastic. It’s just such a treat to be here, actually. Been up swimming this morning, 7.30 in the pool.

[01:06] VIV
24 hours in and she’s sunburnt.

[01:09] MINNIE
First thing I bought this morning was a sun hat and some sun lotion as well.

[01:15] VIV
I think that’s how every trip to Australia should work though, right?

[01:18] MINNIE
That’s true.

[01:19] VIV
Now I remember last time we were together in person was in San Francisco and when we were there I took the chance to ask you about visual descriptions and saying at the start of our podcast episodes we would ask a lovely guest to come in and give it a visual description for anyone that was enjoying the show via transcript or video. And I would love to know if you would like to give one and also if it’s something that you find useful or enjoy in podcasts.

[01:46] MINNIE
Look, do you know it’s not something I had really encountered. You introduced me to the visual descriptions – in terms of, in this context, I do now listen to audio description on films and things and actually it’s quite entertaining and I sometimes do think, what movie are they watching? But anyway it’s like in the things they don’t describe.

But anyway I’m very happy to do that. So I describe myself or do I describe you? I’ll describe myself. So I’m wearing a… I think it’s called Cali Green, I think is the green, which is like an Irish green dress and I have creamy white skin, which is looking a little pink today after the early morning swim. I have on a gold necklace and I have on bright red lipstick and I have blondish hair and I have green eyes. Is that enough?

[02:44] VIV
It’s beautiful. And do you find that information useful for you when you’re at events and things? And if you were going to listen to this podcast would that be useful for you?

[02:54] MINNIE
If I was at an event and there was a speaker presenting and I thought, oh gosh, I’d really like to go and talk to them afterwards, it probably would be helpful to have some idea of what they look like. I am partially blind, visually impaired but I do have some vision.

In other contexts I probably… it might not be something I’d worry about too much? I’d be, so I’d probably just be interested in what it was they were there to talk about. So it probably is all about context actually.

[03:23] VIV
Thanks for your perspective on it. For the people that are listening that don’t know you can you just give a bit of a description about what it is that you do and how you started doing the amazing work that you do.

[03:36] MINNIE
What do I do? Yes, and this has become a more difficult question rather than… Sometimes I think if only I was a lawyer or an accountant, you know I’d have a one word answer. I have to write an entire book, as it were to explain it. We’ll get to that later.

When I was 15, I was diagnosed with a rare sight condition called Stargardt. And Stargardt is a form of macular degeneration, so I have no vision in the center of both my eyes.

And leap forward several years and I guess now maybe I would say I’m a social entrepreneur, an accessibility innovator but I think the common denominator is everything I’ve done, particularly of the last 20, 25 years has been really focused on finding and exploring multiple different ways of trying to advance accessibility and at the heart of that, it has been really how do we engage mainstream society in different conversations and ways of thinking about access.

So I’m always interested in exploring different ways to get people’s attention around why it’s so important that we level the playing field.

[05:04] VIV
Can you speak to your journey opening up Be.Labs and then that evolving?

[05:09] MINNIE
Absolutely. So it’s funny because people sometimes say, ‘what led you to set up what was originally called Be.Accessible?’ It rebranded about 10 years later into Be.Lab and people are thinking, ‘oh, there’s gonna be some very inspirational story’.

But I always say it was probably equal parts desperation and inspiration, which is a really powerful combination. And I think it was a mixture of realizing that I could not stand the kind of employment situation I was in any longer and I kept thinking there’s gotta be a way for me to have a better experience of being employed. And I was also incredibly frustrated with the slow pace of change around accessibility that I was observing internationally, but in this case, particularly in New Zealand. And I felt I had something slightly different to offer into the mix. I felt maybe there was a way of approaching accessibility that maybe had some value.

I’d never employed anyone. I had never managed anyone. I’d never run an organization. There were a lot of reasons why people… quite a valid reason this time have said ‘Minnie, that’s maybe, a bit out of reach’, but luckily for whatever reason at that moment in time all my guardian angels rallied around me. And all the right people showed up, all the ‘possibility people’, all the ‘with people’ started to show up in my life and before I knew it, there was a team of us with this vision for this organization called Be.Accessible.

All of a sudden we seemed to have funding. It was extraordinary and I remember going down and I’d been invited to present down at Parliament and I walked into this room and I’d never been, I’d never presented to ministers before and I’d completely underestimated the magnitude of that moment and realizing that it was now or never. And I just had that feeling of Minnie you’ve gotta jump and trust, you’re gonna fly or flop. But as it were, I think I flew.

And then finding out I don’t know maybe, it must’ve been three months later that we had this announcement at the launch of our organization announcing that we had been granted a million dollars a year to set up this social change organization. And I remember the entire room just went absolutely silent because first of all, disability organizations, new organizations just never got funding so this was extraordinary. Secondly, it was during the global financial crisis. So it was a zero budget. There was no money, new money going to anything yet, somehow in that environment… oh my God, it still makes me quite emotional now thinking about it, this had happened and it was, it truly felt like a miracle.

And that was when you felt we had this incredible belief and support for this vision for Aotearoa to become the most accessible country in the world.

[08:22] VIV
You speak about the excitement when you found Remarkable and finding people working in the same space, what are some of the risks that you get scared of in this moment of excitement as well? When we see people becoming interested and wanting to put money into this space?

[08:38] MINNIE
Oh, that’s such a good question too. What we need to be asking ourselves and other people coming in is ‘why are you working in this space?’ Or ‘why do you want to invest in this space?’ Or ‘why do you want to make a product for disabled people or access citizens?’

I look at the access space and I feel some of this excitement that’s going on and I start to think people with a lot of money don’t just invest out of the goodness of their hearts usually, that might be one of the motivations. If they’re seeing a business model in here, there’s a business model in here. Why would we, as the ‘access community’, allow ourselves to be exploited for others to make money out of our suffering? Because that’s actually what it is at its worst.

Then you go, okay, we live in a capitalistic world, what’s an appropriate business model that values the ‘access community’ as we invest in products and services with that community? Is there a business model that means ‘actually if I’m developing something for the blind community, how do I make sure that a certain return from the profit of this product actually goes back into the blind community, not just into my shareholders?’, because we wouldn’t have even designed it had it not been for the blind community and their lived experience. Do you see what I mean? I’m really interested.

I think one of the areas of innovation we must be thinking about is, what is the business model we would be proud of in 10, 20, 30 years time that our ‘access ancestors’ can say, thank goodness people were thinking about this 30 years earlier, so that we’re creating products and services in a way that are affordable for us because a lot of the products and services are being designed at the moment are actually designed at a price point that many people can’t afford.

This space needs money. This space needs investment. It’s critical.

[10:39] VIV
You’ve released a book and I’m so excited for you but the people that need to read it are certainly the people in the startup space building technology with and hopefully by people with disabilities because it holds a mirror up. And as part of that, you talk about both people outside the community and in the community holding a mirror up to themselves and what the word disruption means in relation to that. Can you shed a light about that concept of disruption?

[11:10] MINNIE
Yeah it’s funny, ‘disruption’ is one of those words that gets used a lot these days, and particularly marketers love it. If we want things to change, if we really want an accessible future, if we want a future full of possibility where we celebrate and value ‘access citizens’ as the extraordinary innovators, creators, designers, citizens that they are. Then we adopt a ‘with’ approach to everything that we do. It’s that simple. That’ll be in my second book.

[11:43] VIV
Your second book will just be that. Those few words, end of!

[11:49] MINNIE
Exclamation mark! Exclamation mark! My poor editor had to remove all my 10 million exclamation marks.

[11:56] VIV
She’s an enthusiastic person! And one of the last things we like to ask people and you’ve left, I’m sure people listening with a bunch of insights that they can walk away with but what would you like people if you were going leave a remarkable insight for the people enjoying our show to go and think about and ponder and hopefully carry with them after this, what would you like that to be?

[12:21] MINNIE
The most extraordinary technology, if we want to use that phrase and the broadest sense possible, are human beings.

So in this sort of scramble to design the next greatest thing, let’s not forget to keep investing in human beings and in our capacity as humans to imagine different realities, different possibilities and to really show up as the best person and people we can be.

Because this revolution, this possibility revolution or change that we are talking about today can only happen if we choose to show up as people who deeply care about equity, about fairness and about the wellbeing of all humans.

So my little soapbox is all about investing in humans as the most remarkable technology I think we will ever experience on this planet.

[13:26] VIV
Thank you to our guest and hopefully you’ve found your own remarkable moment. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and follow our Instagram @remakable_tech for unheard moments from this episode.

Talk with you all on the next one!

Indii | 2023 Demo Day Pitch

Posted on August 22, 2023August 21, 2023 by Remarkable

Presenter:

Pete Beckett, Founder of Indii.

Startup:

Indii is enabling independence for disabled and older people by unlocking the potential of the smart home.

Transcript

[00:00 – 01:28] Pete

This is Sofii, the adaptable switch for your home.

And this is Sophie, my youngest sister. Sophie is a genuine ray of sunshine who finds her joy in good food and singing Christmas songs all year round. In 2001, Sophie experienced a severe brain trauma, and as a result, now requires one-to-one care on a daily basis. Sophie’s experience is what inspires our vision.

Hi, I’m Pete Beckett the founder of Indii and we’re developing technology to enable the tens of millions of people with motor disabilities who stand to benefit from integrating smart-home technology into their homes.

Currently, home tech is limited by its input devices. In a world ruled by phone apps, quick and universal control is not a given. Voice assistants have been a great step in the right direction, but there are many scenarios where users cannot or do not want to use their voice as a primary input method.

Meanwhile, companies operating in the assistive tech space excel in designing solutions with specific user requirements. Unfortunately, to date, most implementations of environmental control have been prohibitively expensive and limited in both scope and capability.

That’s what led us to develop Sofii, the switch, not the sister. Sofii supports adaptive switches and offers audio-visual feedback and connects directly to the smart home without the need for a mobile device.

[01:28 – 01:34] Sofii

This button controls your bedroom lights. Press the button again to toggle on and off.

[01:35 – 02:33] Pete

Sofii can act as a Bluetooth switch for iPads, phones and computers and at just $350, is more capable than its nearest Bluetooth-only rivals and for a lower price.

Over the past 18 months we’ve developed the hardware and software and tested with new potential users.

We’re now really close to delivering on our mission of providing new and improved ways to enable independence at home. But the next 18 months is set to be even more exciting. This spring we’re welcoming interested parties to evaluate our hardware and explore commercial partnerships as we move towards a launch, selling into the NDIS early next year. And this is just the beginning.

In the future, we want to take our tech out of the home and into public spaces, providing more convenient ways for our customers to interact with the world around them.

And all this thanks to Sofii, the switch and the sister.

The Care Co | 2023 Demo Day Pitch

Posted on August 21, 2023August 18, 2023 by Remarkable

Presenter:

Brianna MacDonald, Founder of The Care Co.

Startup:

The Care Co teaches kids aged 5 to 12 mental health habits in the classroom and beyond.

Transcript

[00:00 – 3:29] Brianna

I’d like you to imagine a primary school class. This might be your child’s class or a child you know and there could be about 30 kids.

If it’s a classroom of 30 kids, we expect about 1 in 5 of those children to have already experienced a traumatic event.

We expect 1 in 7 of those kids to already or soon to be struggling with their mental health.

And on average, about 1 in 10 of those young people is disabled.

I’m sure you can imagine, in a classroom of 30 children, that’s a lot of need. And unfortunately, it doesn’t stop there.

We know that 1 in 3 adults struggles with their mental health. We’re losing about $5 trillion in the workplace and 1 in 5 sick days for the same reason. Depression, anxiety and substance abuse disorder are three of the world’s leading disabilities. And it’s expected that almost all people will face at least one significantly traumatic event in their lifetime.

The problem isn’t just our declining level of mental health and wellbeing. The problem is that we’re not learning the skills needed to manage these challenges and we simply don’t have enough supply to meet the need.

My name is Brianna and I’m the founder of The Care Co. I’m a Canadian First Nations woman studying a Masters in Psychology with Harvard. I’ve worked in the trauma-informed education space, am a two-time entrepreneur, and 20 years ago, I was a Care Co kid. Now a flourishing, healthy adult, I’m just one example of what can be achieved with early intervention. And I spend a lot of time looking for where the opportunities are.

Chances are you or someone you know is a parent or guardian and you’re probably pretty busy. While you may not feel like a mental health expert, you’ve got one silver lining. Chances are you send your child to school. If you’re an educator, you might feel plagued with questions like, “How do I teach mental health in the classroom?” Again, an opportunity. You’re teaching fundamental life skills every day. Psychologists are a fantastic, effective model, and while they’re hard to scale in their current form, the psychology community gives us an evidence-based best-practice way to work with kids.

And this brings us to The Care Co. The Care Co is an in-classroom software that teaches kids between the ages of 5 and 12 mental health habits. A self-paced learning tool, we offer easy lesson planning, agency, and a unique way to build mental health habits from day one. One of the features we’re super proud of include our ability-based, evidence-based model,support for school disability funding reports, and activities that are mapped to health subject teaching needs. So where do we go from here?

We’re beta testing our app with 5 schools and 1,500 students. Next we’re partnering with the Cerebral Palsy Alliance and positioning The Care Co in front of about 1,200 schools in September 2023, and officially launch in October. Our future plans include the psychology,
disability and social work communities, as well as an app for parents and guardians at home.

And we have one really audacious goal – “every child, every school.”

To get there, we offer subscriptions priced per student per month. Schools can choose a 6-month or 12-month licence. And considering the 2 billion kids worldwide, we’re just getting started. First targeting 1 million students, we’ll be grossing $60 million in annual recurring revenue if we reach that goal.

For those ready to see mental health skills taught in every school, I ask that you scan this QR code to view a product demo, visit our website, or join our product updates and investment opportunity newsletters.

And if you’re onboard with our North star, join our mission. We would love to have you along.

SpineX | 2023 Demo Day Pitch

Posted on August 18, 2023August 18, 2023 by Remarkable

Presenter:

Kara Allanach, Director at SpineX.

Startup:

SpineX is a clinical-stage bioelectric MedTech company committed to delivering spinal cord neuromodulation technologies to improve the lives of people with neurological conditions.

Transcript

[00:00 – 04:05] Kara

Imagine if you or someone you love was unable to move their body as they pleased or control bladder function on their own. For millions of people in the US living with neurological conditions, this is their reality.

Here at SpineX, we are developing incredible new technology to treat these conditions by using electrical impulses to retrain the spinal cord. Our technology is built on groundbreaking research from the top scientists in the field of neuromodulation and is done non-invasively, without needles or surgery.

Although our technology has many potential applications, we have chosen to focus our first two commercial products on conditions with huge unmet clinical needs, movement disorder in children with cerebral palsy, or CP, and incontinence in adults with neurogenic bladder. These conditions together affect more than 2.5 million Americans.

Existing treatments are simply not good enough because they don’t fix the problems, they only reduce symptoms. At best, they’re short-term solutions, like drugs that cover up symptoms but have unmanageable side effects. And at worst, they’re invasive treatments, like Botox injections or nerve-severing surgery, causing irreversible long-term reductions in function.

With SpineX, now there is hope for these patients and their families. This is a three-year-old child with CP. Before SpineX, he was unable to take steps on his own but when we provided SpineX therapy, within five minutes, he was able to take steps. We have seen similar results, in line with their functional level, with nearly all of the more than 40 children who have undergone treatment with SpineX therapy so far. The really exciting part? We see durable improvements that last for several months beyond the final SpineX therapy treatment. Nothing else on the market can do this.

Neurogenic bladder, or NB, is common in spinal cord injury, multiple sclerosis and stroke. NB often involves incontinence, frequent urinary tract infections, loss of sleep from night-time voids, and use of catheters to empty the bladder. For some people, catheterisation can take 20 minutes each time and must be done anywhere from four to more than ten times per day, including several times through the night.

With SpineX therapy, we’re able to reduce incontinence episodes by 70%. And if leaks do happen, they’re smaller. Patients report feeling more in control, they don’t need as many catheters and they can finally sleep through the night.

How does it work? The common thread between all of these conditions is that messages between the brain and the spinal cord don’t get through clearly. SpineX acts like a hearing aid for the spinal cord, amplifying the signals that need to get through while cutting out background noise. We deliver special electrical pulses through the skin to rewire brain patterns and encourage neuroplasticity, producing long-term results.

What’s next? Our team of highly-experienced medtech professionals is excited to bring these technologies to market. We expect to receive FDA approval for and launch the first of our products in late 2024. We will reach our target customers by working directly with our collaborators in the hospitals, rehabilitation centres and physical therapy clinics where they are already being treated so that we can make sure that we reach as many potential users as possible.

We’ve been told by our patients and their families that the impact of our technology
is magical, and we agree.

Join us in our quest to bring this amazing technology to market. We’re launching a financing round, recruiting for clinical trials, and interested in talking to people with lived experience with any of these conditions.

Please reach out to us. We would love to talk to you.

Aurie | 2023 Demo Day Pitch

Posted on August 17, 2023August 17, 2023 by Remarkable

Presenter:

Souvik Paul, Founder and CEO of Aurie.

Startup:

Aurie is building a reusable no-touch catheter system to help intermittent catheter users avoid urinary tract infections.

Transcript

[00:00 – 03:24] Souvik

Nine years ago, my sister-in-law Carina sustained a spinal cord injury in a car accident. As she began her rehab, I learned that people with SCI would rather improve their bladder function than be able to walk again. That’s why I started Aurie. My name is Souvik Paul and our mission at Aurie is to prevent life-threatening infections for intermittent catheter users.

Carina is one of 600,000 people in the US who need to use six to eight single-use intermittent catheters a day. These catheters are basically plastic straws with holes on either end. To use them, users go into the bathroom, insert the catheter into the urethra and leave it in until urine stops flowing from the bladder. Afterwards, these catheters are removed and thrown away. And altogether, over $2 billion worth of catheters are purchased in the US every year.

The problem is that urinary tract infections are a leading cause of death for people with spinal cord injuries and other intermittent catheter users. There is a 50% annual chance of a severe complicated UTI due to the use of standard catheters. The average user experiences one to two UTIs a year, and an annual supply of these catheters is about $5,000. There are safer no-touch catheters that reduce infections by over 30% because of their insertion sleeves and introducer tips that reduce contact contamination. Because they cost almost $20,000 for an annual supply, they are covered for less than 7% of Medicare patients.

Aurie uses a tech-enabled approach to make intermittent catheterisation safer, more convenient and more sustainable. Our reusable no-touch catheters have the same features that help reduce UTIs, but are designed to be reused 100 times with our patented portable smart catheter case, which completely automates the cleaning, disinfection and lubrication of catheters with tap water and pre-packaged supplies.

When we surveyed catheter users, 81% wanted to switch to our system. Why? Because our system allows us to provide infection-reducing features of no-touch catheters at the same price point as standard catheters. We provide a cost-effective means to reduce urinary tract infections for our users.

We’ve demonstrated repeatable and robust disinfection efficacy with early prototypes at the University of Notre Dame. We’ve further developed the prototypes and are preparing for FDA submission in early 2024. We have four issued patents, one pending patent, and additional planned submissions. We have FDA sign-off on our testing strategy and the FDA has even granted us the Safer Technologies Designation after reviewing our early test data. We’re expecting expedited review once we do submit.

The team at Aurie has over 75 years of experience in healthcare, has commercialised 17 medical devices, and has sold over $50 million in durable medical equipment.

We have a broad coalition of support from investors like Lakehouse Ventures and grant-funders like the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Disabilities, all of whom believe in our mission.

We’re always looking to connect with like-minded investors and innovators. Join us in making infections and preventable death a thing of the past for catheter users.

MEMORehab | 2023 Demo Day Pitch

Posted on August 16, 2023August 16, 2023 by Remarkable

Presenter:

Kyle Cortesi, Director at MEMORehab.

Startup:

MEMORehab is an online platform on a mission to build better memory habits.

Transcript

[00:00 – 03:33] Kyle

Hi, everyone. We are MEMORehab and our mission is to enhance the experience of cognitive rehabilitation so we can make it more accessible, supportive and data-driven. We are a post-revenue company looking for partners to help us increase our outreach and grow our platform.

Globally, one in six people will live with a neurological condition, resulting from things like stroke, epilepsy, traumatic brain injury and more. Sadly, many patients cannot access cognitive rehab due to the inability to travel independently, their distance from the clinic, or the lack of clinicians available with the time or space to run interventions.

Even when interventions are available, patients often lack the tools to practise newly-learned skills or establish new habits. And clinicians are often unable to monitor how their patients are engaging with the program outside the clinic, leaving them unable to provide support when it’s needed most.

At MEMORehab, we support both clinicians and patients through the rehabilitation journey. For clinicians, we allow them to reach patients from anywhere using telehealth and track their patients’ progress with data analytics. For patients, we help them better understand their condition by providing educational resources and reinforce newly-learned skills using computerised training and automatic reminders. Imagine the efficiency. Weekly, group-based telehealth sessions, practice with digital tools, and consistent feedback.

We have begun our journey by adapting a well-established, group-based memory intervention to our platform with over ten years of clinical research backing its efficacy. And in the future, we aim to expand our services by adapting additional well-established interventions to our delivery model.

Right now, we are working on several projects to support MEMORehab, like building a dedicated research platform to test our materials, training and education programs for clinicians via accredited workshops and seminars, and a clinician registry to help patients find the right professional.

Since our incorporation 2021, we have worked with organisations, universities and hospitals. For example, we have partnered with both local and international organisations in the neurological injury space. We have teamed up with universities such as Monash to conduct clinical research, showing that patients using our platform increased in several key areas related to memory. And we are proud to say that major hospitals, health districts and clinics across the country have purchased our annual licences, with dozens of patients successfully using MEMORehab.

Our team brings a wealth of passion and experience, including Laurie Miller, a clinical neuropsychologist with 30 years of experience, Kyle Cortesi, that’s me, with experience in program management, and Pranshu Midha, a skilled front-end developer.

Today, we’re seeking partners who believe in our vision. So if you can help us reach more clinicians, link them with patients, or add interventions to our platform, we would love to hear from you.

So if you are interested in joining us to revolutionise cognitive rehabilitation, use the QR code to visit our website and let’s schedule a call.

With MEMORehab, we’re not just imagining the future of cognitive rehabilitation, we’re building it.

Hominid X | 2023 Demo Day Pitch

Posted on August 15, 2023August 15, 2023 by Remarkable

Presenter:

Thane Hunt, Founder and CEO of Hominid X.

Startup:

Hominid X develops transformative assistive grasping devices to help individuals with hand disabilities to gain greater functional independence.

Transcript

[00:00 – 02:45] Thane

There’s probably an object next to you right now. Pick it up, but without squeezing your fingers. It’s impossible.

I’m Thane Hunt, founder and CEO of Hominid X. We build wearable tools that help people to reclaim the use of their hands. Why?

Because there are over 200 million people who can’t use their hands, making everyday tasks difficult or impossible. Physical therapy can help, but often takes years and won’t result in a full recovery. And in the meantime, the adaptive solutions are either specialised to one task or too expensive.

So we designed Fiber, our easy-to-use, adaptive grasping tool that empowers its user with a secure and versatile grip around almost any object. A user can put it on in under 30 seconds and wear it comfortably all day to help them complete any task that requires grip strength. Our design guides the hand into a variety of different grasps, and it does this without any cumbersome motors or batteries. That’s right, our solution is entirely mechanical. There is no other product like it and we’re patent-protected.

Our early testers have held thousands of different objects and the results are clear. People with hand disabilities are riding bicycles, preparing food and getting back to doing what they love.

Let’s take an example, Megan, who loves to bake. Megan suffered a stroke when she was younger and lost the ability to use her left hand. When we met, she was using just one hand for her baking projects. Now with Fiber, she’s using both hands. She’s been able to focus more on her recipes and less on her grasp. She recently opened a bakery and summed up the magic of her experience with Fiber to her followers on TikTok.

[01:34 – 01:42] Megan

Dude, it works! I did it! Easy-peasy. Oh, this makes me so happy! I haven’t been able to do this for years.

[01:42 – 02:39] Thane

Stories like Megan’s are everywhere. Millions of people needed help with grasping and holding and they haven’t been served until now. We sell our products directly to the users or through their occupational therapists.

Since launching Fiber last year, we’ve worked with clinicians and users all across the United States. Once someone wears Fiber, they understand.

We have a strong team. With my background in prosthetics and hardware development, I invented Fiber. My co-founder, Soniya, did the marketing for a $200 million revenue business. And our manufacturing leader, Junior, brings 20 years of experience in scaling new products to mass production.

Try to imagine someone you care about being unable to pick up the phone when you call or giving up on their hobby because they lack the grip strength to do it. With Fiber, we’ve already been able to put the most fulfilling moments of people’s lives back into their own hands.

So visit us online at HominidX.com to purchase Fiber or to schedule a demo. And together, we’ll create a world where no hand is left behind.

Thank you.

Possibility Neurotechnologies | 2023 Demo Day Pitch

Posted on August 14, 2023August 14, 2023 by Remarkable

Presenter:

Dion Kelly, Co-Founder and CEO of Possibility Neurotechnologies.

Startup:

Possibility Neurotechnologies is bridging the gap between BCI and everyday life, empowering individuals to control the world around them with just their thoughts.

Transcript

[00:00 – 04:08] Dion Kelly

I’m Dion Kelly, Co-Founder and CEO of Possibility Neurotechnologies, the company that’s empowering the future of inclusion with our assistive technology solutions that convert thought to action.

This is Claire. Claire is a six-year-old girl with quadriplegic cerebral palsy. She can’t speak or move, which hinders her ability to use current assistive technologies. Though she’s very smart and capable, her physical limitations often make it difficult for her to communicate and express her abilities. Around the world, there are millions of children like Claire who face similar challenges. Their access to basic human rights, including self-expression, play and independence, is often restricted.

Brain Computer Interfaces, or BCIs, allow users to control devices using their brainwaves, including household appliances and power mobility chairs. However, BCIs and their applications are not yet readily available to the end-users like Claire because the middle component enabling control of these external devices has been confined to research environments.

Our proprietary technology, the Think2Switch, fills this gap in providing a bridge between BCIs and the devices that they can control. Using a BCI headset, a user can think about a desired intention and use that thought to control a switch-adapted device through translation of the thought to action by the Think2Switch.

We’re packaging our Think2Switch with a commercial BCI headset and environmental control device to provide a ready-to-use, plug-and-play solution for children to immediately access their environments and participate in life activities.

We’ve innovatively filled a significant gap in the market with our user-friendly, portable Think2Switch system. Unlike existing middleware solutions that are typically restricted to lab environments, our unique system is portable and ready for immediate plug-and-play application.

Our initial target market is children with quadriplegia, of which there are 36,000 resulting from CP in developed countries alone. Our entry into this market will leverage specialised healthcare networks, therapeutic communities and targeted marketing strategies. Subsequently, we plan to expand our reach to adults with quadriplegia, a demographic of more than nine million individuals in developed countries. This will involve partnerships with rehabilitation centres, adult care facilities and relevant healthcare providers.

Our long-term strategy involves penetrating the mass market of able-bodied children, a demographic of approximately 80 million in North America. In this phase, we’ll leverage mainstream retail channels and broad-based marketing strategies.

With our Think2Switch technology, Claire is actively participating in activities that were once impossible, from baking cookies with her little brothers, to blending her own meals, making lemonade, and even participating in their family tradition of pickling. Claire’s mom said, “It’s a light at the end of the tunnel. The possibilities are endless.”

As one of the few teams globally focused on researching BCIs for children, our multidisciplinary group of clinicians, engineers and business development specialists are leading the way in this untapped market.

With a shared passion for making a difference, we’re driving forward the development of integrated BCI solutions. We believe that everyone deserves equal opportunities and our vision is to foster an inclusive society where this is possible.

Our next goal is to significantly expand access to our product to better serve our primary target market of children with quadriplegia. In order to achieve this, we’re planning to raise a $2 million funding round later this year.

If you’re a passionate investor who shares our vision of an inclusive society, we’d love to start a conversation. We’re also interested in connecting with potential partners and customers who could benefit from our technology. With your support, we can bring BCI to the millions of individuals who need it most.

Let’s work together to create a future where everyone, regardless of their physical abilities, has the chance to express themselves, to play, to create and to live independently.

Are you ready to join us on this journey?

Enabled Play | 2023 Demo Day Pitch

Posted on August 11, 2023August 11, 2023 by Remarkable

Presenter:

Alex Dunn, Founder and CEO of Enabled Play.

Startup:

Enabled Play* levels the playing field for people with disabilities by giving them new ways to control their technology that works for them.

*Please note Enabled Play will soon be rebranding.

Transcript

[00:00 – 01:26] Alex

Hi, I’m Alex Dunn, the founder of Enabled Play, the platform that integrates personalised and accessible controls to help brands reach and support more customers of all abilities.

We got started building AI-augmented controls because in 2020, my brother Bryan was trying to keep up with his friends while playing video games, but he was getting left behind. And as an AI engineer and former founder, I knew there had to be a simple fix for this, a new way to communicate with devices and software that adapt to the individual rather than pushing them to depend on hardware that isn’t accessible or equitable to them. And it got us thinking.

Because the truth is that over 600 million people globally cannot access technology because simple software is not designed for their accessibility needs. Here in the US, that’s nearly one in five Americans. And as 91% of businesses now expect their customers to engage with their business in a software-first platform, it means they’re leaving behind 600 million potential customers. As an example, for one of our customers, a Fortune 50 bank, they estimate that there is more than 12 million unbanked or underbanked prospect customers in the US alone who cannot become their customer because their applications are not accessible. That’s money that they, and anyone else who is trying to reach more customers, is leaving on the table. In fact, we estimate that enterprise businesses are leaving on average $33 billion in revenue by not building for accessibility.

So we built Enabled Play, a personalised set of controls for users that let them augment and automate their technology with voice controls, face expressions, body gestures, motion controls, virtual buttons and more.

[01:37 – 01:41] Computer

New slide. Type this is my new title.

[01:41 – 02:30] Alex

It’s a platform that adapts to each user’s abilities using the latest innovations in AI and machine learning. Even more importantly, it can also operate entirely offline, so your voice and video is never recorded, it’s never streamed and it’s never shared beyond the device you’re using. Finally, it allows each user to bring their personalised profiles and preferences to each app, game and service they want to control, which means businesses don’t have to find the right way to support each unique user’s needs and preferences. They’ve already been empowered to do that for themselves and can bring those preferences and controls directly to your apps, games, websites and services. It also provides a new surface for your business’s services to be discovered, too.

We recently finished raising our seed investment round and are not looking for additional investors at this point, but we’re eager to meet with heads of accessibility, DE&I and technology working at companies that are eager to discover how, through a simple software integration with our platform, they can gain access to hundreds of millions of new users, too.

Remarkable Insights: Steve King

Posted on August 10, 2023November 24, 2023 by Remarkable

Transcript

[00:00] Viv

Hi I’m Viv Mullan, host of this podcast about disability driving innovation. Our guest went from a small town in Western Australia to Foundation Director at one of the biggest and richest companies, Atlassian. Steve King is always on a mission to drive the representation of disabled entrepreneurs and here’s why. Steve, firstly can we please start with a visual description of yourself.

[00:59] Steve

Ah, I don’t even really know how to describe myself. It’s always a bit hard, but I’m just a white guy with blondie/brown hair and dark rim glasses, wearing some big headphones, which are quite uncomfortable. But yeah, that’s me.

[01:18] Viv

That’s great, For everyone listening, Steve has got the world’s best smile, so we’ll give you that as well thank you. Thank you again for coming on and agreeing to share your story and the work you’re involved with. And for those who don’t have the total privilege of knowing exactly who you are, would you mind just starting off with giving a bit of an intro about who you are, Steve, and how you got to where you are today?

[01:41] Steve

Hi, I’m Steve King. I’m the director of Atlassian Foundation for Business Impact. I look after our pledge 1% initiative, which is really just taking the model that we built Atlassian Foundation with and bringing it out to businesses in the community. We honestly believe that we can really bring more philanthropy and social impact through startups that want to have volunteer time or opportunities to be able to donate or give their products away to organizations that are having an impact. And yeah, we’re just trying to find a really good way to do that. Previously I’d come through the Remarkable program. I’ve been a founder of a startup. I’ve been a really, an accidental founder, co-founder of a startup. I’ve been an accidental a lot of things but yeah, most recently accidental director of Atlassian Foundation.

[02:31] Viv

I think that it may feel like an accident to you, but I’m sure you’re exactly where you’re meant to be every step of the way.

[02:38] Steve

Sure hope so.

[02:40] Viv

And I know that even in your previous role, you were with Canva for a bit and you were heading accessibility and I’d love to unpack where this passion for accessibility in the disability space comes from.

[02:51] Steve

It’s a combination of places. I think my journey in technology really started from a place of not having access to the same avenues of technology or the same opportunities in technology.

Growing up in an area that didn’t really have a lot of technology in it, I was really quite lucky to have access to the things that I did. And yeah, I really made that work even though it was really not clearly in my destiny at that time. Yeah, growing up and not being able to access the universities and not having a lot of the things that I think a lot of other people would’ve had. I didn’t finish high school. I didn’t finish university. I think for me, it really ended up putting a lot of emphasis on being able to access that stuff was really important to so many people, not just people that have the opportunity to access it.

And I started by doing a lot of work in getting kids into coding and getting kids into technology so that they had access to that, all the things that I didn’t when I was young. And I think it just went from there.

I was really privileged to have a lot of people with lived experience of disability in my life as well. I was able to navigate things with them and understand more about what was actually needed.

And as I developed as a product manager and as a software engineer over the years, inversed to that but as I went on that journey, I was able to see how the decisions that we make in building software and building products actually impact so many people. Not just the users that we target, but also the users that we’re not actively targeting and how much of an impact that can have.

So that really led me to being more aware of not just digital accessibility, but more from my childhood around inclusion in general and getting people access to the things that they can access to then go and build amazing things, whether it’s software, cars, or whatever it is. And then also being able to have access to the same opportunities. Whether they take those opportunities or not. Who’s to say? Not being able, to be able to use university tools because you can’t see in the same way that other people do or not being able to access technology because you can’t hear, you can’t see, you can’t walk. These are all really crappy reasons not to be able to go and build amazing stuff still.

That led me to really understanding more about the customer experience around people with accommodation needs that led to building out accessibility with Atlassian and then eventually over at Canva as well.

[05:26] Viv

You say you were teaching yourself that coding. How old were you when you were teaching yourself?

[05:30] Steve

Oh I was teaching myself from when I was about I think about 10. Just thinking back. Any piece of old technology that I could get my hands on or that was like donated to my family or that I happened to be able to find or scrounge around, I would try and find a way to use it and pull it apart, put it back together. I just loved it and I couldn’t get enough of it

[05:54] Viv

And did you feel that the schooling system almost didn’t fit the way your brain was working at such a young age?

[06:02] Steve

A hundred percent. I found out that I was neurodivergent much later in life than I probably should have. I feel like it was obvious to a hell of a lot more people than me before I got my diagnosis.

But yeah the school system was really tough. I remember. Not just struggling with classic behavioral issues or being told I couldn’t focus or I couldn’t apply myself. And like I had a huge amount of potential. That was always a real struggle for me because to spend your whole life being told that you had potential but that you weren’t doing enough was just a real, it was a real downer because you never really know whether or not that’s true and you’re just not reaching that potential or if you are just not smart enough and like they think you’re smart, that’s great, but maybe you’re not smart enough because people keep telling you you should be doing amazing things, but you just can’t seem to get that together. So I spent a lot of time thinking that I was pretty dumb.

I loved maths, I loved physics, I loved computer engineering and software engineering. I wrote some good code, some bad code, and I just love puzzle solving and I think through school that was really where I should have clued in at that point that all these really analytical things I loved and the things where you had to try and express creative freedom I was struggling at.

But yeah, it wasn’t really well built for someone who was trying to navigate that at the same time, is navigate life itself as a teenager.

[07:36] Viv

It’s so cool. I’m chuffed to know that we can have this conversation and bounce shared experiences off each other. And it’s that thing of feeling quite alone in a journey until you realize there’s a bunch of really cool people that are in your corner and in their own corners. We’re all a quirky bunch doing our own thing. And yet you still feel this imposter.

I’ve heard you talk about this imposter syndrome. Can you speak to the process of that sort of doubt and how that transitioned into feeling more confident in what you’re capable of?

[08:07] Steve

Oh, I don’t feel confident at all. Sorry, everyone. No, look before I was diagnosed, I think what I struggled with the most was legitimacy, right? And that was actually separate from feeling neurodivergent.

I’d already grown up feeling like I wasn’t living up to my potential and feeling like I accidentally landed in things because of happenstance. And a lot of that was opportunity, being able to network and being able to bring that quirky insight to things, meant that people kept me around because if they didn’t know something they asked me and I tended to know. And so I think from that perspective, I was really fortunate that I’d cultivated such a good group of people around me to lead me into this kind of like software engineering path.

Having said that, like I still really struggled to, once I found my place in those jobs, to really feel like I was valued in the same way that other people did. And I’ve worked for Google, Yahoo, I’ve done a lot of big software projects for big name companies and every time I was like, ‘not the smartest person in the room, there’s everyone else is just better, deserves to be here, you’ve lucked into this situation, so don’t rock the boat’. And that was really tough.

And I think landing in Atlassian was probably the first time where I felt like, to be clear, like I didn’t feel like I belonged because I deserved to be there, but I belonged because people were really direct, they were clear with you about where you stood with things. All of the things around you know the interpersonal things that I’d struggled with, were suddenly not there. And that’s not to say that’s how the whole company operated, but it was much easier. I felt finally, like I’d actually landed somewhere that I belong, but I still really struggled with that feeling of imposter syndrome.

I ended up giving a talk on it and discussing it from the perspective of, ‘yeah this is how I deal with it’ and it’s meditation, it’s validation, it’s all the things that you still struggle with but I’d kind of worked through.

And eventually what I realised was that as much as I see these people really excelling and doing these really amazing things, and they deserve all the credit that they get for those things, what I was doing was probably self sabotaging in a lot of ways and as much as I was doing a lot of things, sometimes also exhausting myself because I was constantly chasing being ‘good enough’ that I’d end up not doing enough to be good at anything. And that’s that whole if you’re mediocre at everything and you’re not great at anything. That’s my life, man. But that’s how I, that’s how I’ve existed. That’s how I’m here. So how do you rationalize that and how do you bring that together?

And I think you know what, it ended up being a superpower of basically being able to dissect how people started to share what they wanted. When you’ve got a group of people around you who are clear about what they need and what they want and how they expect things to be, not you to be, but like the things that you’re working on. ‘This is what I need’ and they’re clear and they’re honest and there’s like a honesty system there, all of a sudden working’s easy because you’re not trying to anticipate what they’re trying to tell you, you’re just doing what they’ve asked you to do and that’s all they want from you, and that’s brilliant.

So I think eventually finding really good people to work with, in a really good culture ended up being the thing that like accelerated my experience.

[11:43] Viv

In your experience with Canva and Atlassian and seeing the way those sort of companies that very much started as startups evolve, they very much take under their wing the innovations and technologies that are built around them and it’s sort of part of your mission to knowing that the disability community is a real sort of hub and pool of potential and ideas and creativity by encouraging more disabled entrepreneurs, people like Atlassian and Canva are really going to benefit from the creations made from this community.

[12:13] Steve

Yeah, absolutely. It takes you five minutes to be a neurodivergent person on TikTok for TikTok to be like, ‘I got you. I understand. I know how your brain works’. And it shows you videos that are all captioned and even all the memes are like, ‘oh, can you turn captions on? I can’t hear what’s going on?’ Because there’s like a buzzing noise in the background. Like these are two real problems. And so I think by understanding my experience, I’m way better at describing the things that I need to not overcome it, to not combat it, to not get rid of it or cancel it out, but to say ‘ you know what, yeah, I can watch videos with captions and also do five other things at the same time, and no, I won’t remember what I’m doing in five minutes, but I’m still enjoying that experience and I’m still getting a lot of value out of it. So how do I get that same experience or that same lived experience and lived expertise from people who are going through those things and putting those into products’.

And if you have someone who’s building a product to solve a problem for the very thing that they’re experiencing on a day-to-day basis, no one will be better at solving that problem than them. And we owe it to them as a startup community to make sure that they’re connected to all the same opportunities that everyone else did.

Just because someone doesn’t come from a software engineering background, doesn’t mean that they can’t learn the skills to engage with software engineers. And just because they don’t come from a product background doesn’t mean they can’t learn the skills to translate their idea and their concept into a working product model or a prototype or whatever it is, right? If people are willing to learn and work hard to do those things or connect to the right people and engage and get those things done, then they are going to be incredible pieces of software, physical products, consulting, like whatever it is. That’s gonna be the best you can get to solve that problem that person lives with every day.

So we should be doing that. Not just spending six months pontificating about what the experience might be like. Let’s just get them to solve it.

[14:22] Viv

To wrap these conversations up, I do like to ask people to leave listeners and people enjoying the show with a remarkable insight, which is open to interpretation, but what is something you would like to leave people with as a bit of a thought provoking final piece?

[14:37] Steve

If I could do it all again, I would. If I could tell myself anything or if I could tell anyone anything that’s thinking about this kind of thing is there’s always a path there.

I for sure think that if you have the tenacity to understand the things that you need to get to get into creating a startup, creating an opportunity like we did with the fellowship, some weird combination of both like that is much easier and much more within your grasp than I think a lot of folks give it credit for, and it’s that ability to be able to leverage the community around you for support the startup community, which are very giving community in terms of like attention, understanding and knowledge.

Leveraging the right communities and building on that to achieve what you want to is just so very achievable and much more achievable than you think.

[12:00] Viv
Thank you to our guest, and hopefully you found your own Remarkable Moment. Make sure you subscribe to the podcast and follow our Instagram @remarkable_tech for unheard moments from this episode.

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