About us

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My name is Daniel, and I am one of the co-founders of Alek.

In April 2023, my mum was diagnosed with Motor Neuron Disease (MND, also known as ALS). After 18 months her voice started to deteriorate, and I started looking in to what options were available to help her to continue to communicate. At the time, I was disappointed that a lot of the options didn't seem to take advantage of the latest improvements in technology.

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And so, in October 2024, my co-founder and I started building Alek. We thought that with the improvements in AI over the last few years that we could create an app with significantly improved auto-complete or suggested responses, and hopefully greatly improve the speed at which people with speech disabilities can communicate. Mum is our first and most passionate user.

 

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Since we started, we have been working with existing AAC users and a number of organisations in New Zealand & Australia to help make Alek possible. This includes the TalkLink Trust (https://talklink.org.nz/) and MND New Zealand (https://mnd.org.nz/). We are also very excited to be part of the Remarkable Launcher programme (https://www.remarkable.org/) which supports health tech start ups.

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This is Mike - my fellow co-founder. In his own words:

"I co-founded Alek with Daniel after his mum was diagnosed with MND. Seeing the communication challenges first-hand was humbling and eye-opening. It made me realize how many people face barriers to expressing themselves every day, in ways that most of us take for granted.

For me, Alek was an opportunity to use my technical skills to make a real difference. But more than that, it has been a journey of listening, learning, and understanding the incredible resilience of the people we serve. Every day, I’m driven by the impact we can have - helping people communicate faster, more effectively, and with greater confidence."

We are still very early in our journey, but we are committed to unlocking the potential that AI has to help anyone with a speech disability to talk faster and easier. If you are interested in being more involved or helping us transform how people can communicate, we would love to hear from you - get in touch today.