ATU724 – AVAZ Updates with Narayanan Ramikrishnan

Hi, this is Narayanan, and I’m the CEO of Avaz Inc., and this is your Assistive Technology Update.

Hello and welcome to your Assistive Technology Update, a weekly dose of information that keeps you up-to-date on the latest developments in the field of technology designed to assist individuals with disabilities and special needs. I’m your host, Josh Anderson, with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. Welcome to episode 724 of Assistive Technology Update. It is scheduled to be released on April 11th, 2025.

Today’s show, we are super excited to welcome back Narayanan, the CEO of Avaz, to the show, to talk about some updates to the AAC app. As always, listeners, we want to thank you so much for taking time out of your day to give us a listen. Let’s go ahead and get on with the show.

Listeners, we were lucky enough to have Narayanan, the CEO of Avaz, on the show back in the fall of 2020 to tell us all about the app and how it can help individuals with communication. Well, we’re super excited to welcome him back to the show to tell us all about some exciting updates to the app and tell us about everything else related to AVAZ. Welcome back to the show.

Thank you so much. Thank you so much, Josh. It’s a pleasure to be back again. A lot has changed.

A lot has changed. I know, yeah. I think that we all kind of put 2020 out of our mind, so hopefully folks can always go back and listen to the show if they need to. But I guess start us off just because it’s been so long, can you tell us a little bit about yourself?

Sure. I run Avaz, and we are a small company focused on building wonderful AAC, and I say a wonderful AAC system in the sense that we really want to design an AAC system and not only stop at the designing something that is efficient for the user as a communicator, but also we want to really take that to be also to get into the intervention aspect. How do you get an AAC system? You can offer the AAC system to the user, but how do you also get them to be successful with it?

So, my team is about… We are about 15, 20 people in Avaz, and we focus mainly on building wonderful AAC systems and then support with the intervention aspect to ensure that anyone who’s using Avaz, and for that matter, anyone who’s using AAC can succeed.

I’m not going to lie, just from seeing it at conferences, from watching some stuff, you seem to have fun with it too, a little bit, or make AAC a little bit more fun.

Yeah, yeah. I think generally everyone… Working in this space also, sometimes you tend to take yourself too seriously, which is a good thing. I don’t mean to say that one should not be taking the work serious. Sometimes, a lot of the ideas that come in and we think a lot, I think we tend to overthink in this space, and sometimes I feel that we can all be a little less serious about things. I don’t know if you saw our API banner this time, it had this backdrop of me and a bunch of our team thinking through about how we talked through the feedback that we got from users and how we made what went behind rolling out the new update of the app as well.

So, I think we also see ourselves as probably some of the younger brands compared to the older AAC products out there. They’ve been there for ages, and I know it takes a lot of build company like that. But we are slightly younger. We are still like the teenage years right now. So, we are slightly more excitable about things. We see technology as a big step-up and as a big… Technology as a big… What do you say? Almost like a differentiator that we can… Using which I think we can design better systems for AAC users and the ecosystem around them. Technology should be doing the hard work, right?

Yeah.

Not speech language pathologists, not teachers, not parents, not communicators. Technology should be doing the hard work, and that’s what we’ve been thinking about and how to bring that into life into a product.

Oh, definitely. That just helps all the users, and like you said, it helps everybody that you mentioned there, if the technology’s doing the heavy lifting and you can actually just focus on communication and success with it. That’s awesome.

Yeah, yeah.

That is awesome. I guess just because I know Avaz is kind of in its teenage years compared to some of the maybe older things, when was this started and what was the idea behind it or the why?

Avaz means voice in the Hindi language, and someone came up to me in API [inaudible 00:05:36], and told me that it also means voice in Turkish. I haven’t verified that, but that’s fun to know. So, we were the first AAC product, indigenous AAC product that we built out of India. Back August in 2009, we rolled out the first version, and until then, a lot of the devices, AAC systems in India were kind of imported. Basically, a lot of the Indian AAC users, very few of them were exposed to AAC, and then they were looking at vocabulary, which was not very contextual to them. Images that were not very contextual to them, not culturally sensitive.

And also, not taking into account the support system here in India. You have a lot of speech therapists, you have a lot of teachers, support in the US for someone with the communication need, but that system is currently still growing in India. It is still evolving. That’s the kind of gap we started to fill with Avaz when we launched in India. It was one of the first devices that we could mount on a wheelchair. It was so heavy that we could almost bridge your leg with that.

And then, 2012 came and the iPad came out. For us, as a small team based out of India, we quickly pivoted into a software system. We started building, [inaudible 00:07:08] kind of investing as a business into hardware, we looked at software and saw that we could design software that was not only successful in India, but we also saw the product pickup usage in the US and Europe as well. With the App Store, it was very democratized for us to take a product, think about and design a very good product, and then ship them to users around the world. That really helped us. That entire App Store switch really helped us.

Since then, we’ve been in over 100 countries. We ship Avaz in about 18 languages. It’s available on an Android phone, on an iPad, on an iPhone. Within a couple of weeks on a… Oh, by the time this podcast goes out, it should be available on Windows as well.

Oh, wow.

So, it’s across platforms, has a variety of pricing, so you can do a subscription model if the parents… If there are families who want to go through a low-cost subscription model, or they’re like one-time purchases as well. So even the purchasing model is somewhat contextualized and customized for different geographies, because I think when we talk about access, there are different layers of access. There’s access about what kind of devices, Android devices are slightly cheaper and affordable, so can you provide access on them. Or can you provide access in terms of affordability and access in terms of languages. So, there are different ways in which you can think about access as well.

Oh, definitely. I like that you offer those ways, because, like you said, you’re in a lot of different countries. Funding sources can look different, and like you said, if a family’s paying for it, if maybe some funding source or a school or something else is paying for it, all having those different options really opens up a lot of doors.

Yeah, yeah. So hence, for example, we are in a lot of school districts in the US, so we sell directly to school districts or through insurance. Some of our resellers partners as well. What we’ve seen is that they also really appreciate the different options available. A lot of school districts would come to us and say, “Hey, I have a family who has an Android device, so this is really useful. They can use the iPad at school, and then Android device at home.” That’s something that we’ve heard quite often.

Nice. Very, very cool. It’s been four and a half years since you’ve been on, so I’m sure there’s been some changes, but you could tell us some of the exciting updates that have happened in the last four years?

Sure. Maybe I’ll start off with something in a more of a chronological order. One of the things, Josh, that we really started getting excited about, I think generally I think look at a post-2022 November world, with ChatGPT coming on the scene and all of that, I think generally we were looking at how is this [inaudible 00:10:17] space of AI going to change or impact the world of AAC and communication.

Like I said, if you go back to the point where there is so much that technology can do to improve the lives of people who use AAC and simplify the needs, simplify what the teacher is doing, and simplify the lives of parents and speech therapists, I think that was one… I think it’s a big that entire AI and large language models, the whole movement that we are seeing right now, I feel that’s almost an underlying thing to me.

It feels that AAC systems will look very different over the next decade. We started thinking about it. We started talking about it internally. We started talking to folks, experts, and we started talking to parents. One of the things that came up, very interestingly, was that we never hear an angry AAC user or a sarcastic AC user, because most of the times, the text-to-speech that they’re using doesn’t have any option for an intonation at all. They don’t really have the power for expression.

You and I can talk about being angry or being sad or being then sarcastic, but none of those intonations are offered for the AAC user at all. That was the first feature that we rolled out. One of the things that we thought about was how can you give AAC users a really easy way to express and add information to what they’re speaking. So, what we’ve done is with Avaz now, let me just say, I’m going to create a sentence here with my Avaz. I’m just going to say, “Can you stop that?”

Can you stop that now?

This is how all AAC users sound today across AAC systems. This is actually very polite. But if you were really angry and you wanted to say this, it should communicate, as an AAC user, you should be able to do that. Now with Avaz, you can just change the tone and speak it out.

Can you stop that now?

Wow.

That’s the power of intonation. I’m able to be more authentic to how I’m going to say something. The best part, Josh, is that we gave this out to about a hundred odd people for a beta, and they tried this out and we got a lot of wonderful feedback. There were parents who said, “My child really is getting engaged with the app.” We had AAC users who found it to be really exciting. We had speech therapists who found that to be different ways to teach things to AAC users. And then, we also added this option for sarcasm, which really everyone else, everyone loved. Let me just type out something like…

Yeah, right.

It is so much fun. Imagine an adolescent AAC user using Avaz and actually communicating sarcasm, so that’s so powerful. The reason I bring this up is that text-to-speech technology is just going to evolve. It’s evolving very quickly, and it’s going to change significantly over the next few years as well. There are different companies working on these things, so you have realistic emotional voices doing narrations and all of that. Why not for an AAC user, right?

That’s the one big feature. That’s something which is unique to Avaz, and something that is just very simple to use and gives the power back to the communicator. It’s just that they just have to hit a button and then they can intonate. No need for any programming or anything. That started off one of the thinking around how do we use different technologies that are evolving, and then how do you bring that into the app as well. So, that’s how our thought processing. This was one dimension.

The other dimension, Josh, for us, was that we had a lot of feedback. We got a lot of feedback from our AAC users, from our speech therapists who were using Avaz and really liking it. They wanted us to have larger grid sizes supported on Avaz. So when we spoke last, Avaz had… We had optimized the grid sizes in the vocabulary to about 40 pictures per screen, and we worked on a completely new vocabulary layout, and that supports of 217 pictures per screen. You have 40, 60, 77, 96, 117, so it offers a significantly larger category. The way we thought about designing the vocabulary was not to just fill in the words, but again, going back to the point of how do you make it engaging for the AAC user, how do you make it easy for the teacher or the speech therapist.

Now, the version of Avaz that’s out there on the App Store that anyone downloads today gets access to a significantly robust vocabulary, which has support for GIFs. You can program your own GIFs. That could be like, for example, I know you can’t see this here, but I can actually program a GIF with embarrassed and speak it out in a sad tone as well. It just comes up, and it comes up with the GIF and it plays the GIF. Similarly, you have supports for YouTube, adding YouTube snippets. Again, very simple, easy to use.

It’s not that the other products, AAC systems, didn’t have these. But what we have done is we’ve really made it simple for people to just do it within the app. You don’t need to go ahead and create your own GIF images. You can do that and no one’s stopping it, but you also get a repository of millions of GIF images to search now. So, you get an online repository that you can access from within the app. Similarly, you can search for YouTube with videos within the app, set a start time, set an end time, and just let that video snippet click. It’s fairly straightforward.

What we’ve seen is that a lot of [inaudible 00:17:17] language processors have started liking that feature for adding YouTube snippets. Again, the idea being that, how do you give that authenticity or how do you provide the AAC user different ways to connect meaningfully. There are tones, there are GIFs, because probably all their peers are using GIFs today, and that there are YouTube videos that they would want to show if they want to play, if they are using [inaudible 00:17:50] to communicate. So, those are some of the key features for the AAC user that we’ve added specifically given that we have to redesign the entire [inaudible 00:18:03].

Nice. I love that you give the new options with the GIFs, with the YouTube just to help with adoption, of course, for folks to be able to really adopt and want to use it and feel more in control. But then with the tone, with being able to change that, there’s just such a whole nother level of communication. I mean, I remember when just the voices started sounding more human and how big of a difference that made, but now that I can actually throw in the sarcasm.

Because sometimes with folks and just depending on their needs, you can tell by the facial expressions. But for some other folks, that may not be a way to communicate. So being able to have that just, oh, it makes such a richer just dialogue with individuals. That’s awesome to put that in.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you use the right word. It’s richer dialogue. It’s so much more meaningful if I’m able to add a layer of intonation, and it’s easily accessible. It’s not that I have to tap a few buttons and create a complicated sentence to do what is just accessible at the tap of a button.

Yeah, yeah. That is great. Like I said, it just opens up so many more doors. I mean, I know, at least the speech language pathologists I talked to, they said some of the hardest thing is just getting someone to use the device. You know what I mean? To want to use the device, to see. But anything you can do to really help with that adoption just makes it so much easier on everybody. Of course, much easier on the individual trying to communicate, which means the end goal really anyway. That is awesome.

All of these just came from user feedback pretty much, and folks asking for it, is that where a lot of the ideas came from?

Yes, a lot of it was user feedback. One of the things that we’ve been doing is talking to a lot of users and speech therapists in the field as well. We were looking at developing how… While we can talk about offering great vocabulary and robust vocabulary, we also want engagement. So a lot of the user feedback would be that, “Hey, you have great vocabulary, but then the user is not engaged. The user doesn’t find any attachment to the AAC system.” That was what we got down to.

After a lot of interviews, we were able to lean some of these problems that they were facing, and that was the reason why we added some of these features, like GIFs, and even the tones for that matter, to bring that entire connection piece, so how do make the AAC user happy [inaudible 00:20:49].

Very, very cool. You probably have a lot of these, but could you tell us a story about someone using the program and how it’s made a positive change in their life, or maybe just a story that sticks out to you?

Sure. This is more like a beta testing story. When we were trying out the tones, we gave it out to a parent who showed it to her four-year-old daughter. She was like, “Oh, my daughter loves the angry voice and she keeps wanting to say everything in the angry tone, and she’s so much more engaged with the device.” All right? So, it was wonderful to hear that. She was also one of the parents who said, “When are you guys going to break out larger vocabulary sizes, support for larger vocabulary sizes?” So when we did that, she was really impressed by the thought that we had put in making it easier for the communication partner as well.

Again, there are systems out there with support anywhere from 40 words on the screen to 180 words on the screen. At the same time, you’re also looking at how do you ensure that the communication partners, be it the speech therapists, be it the parents, be it the teacher are also able to model language for the child. So, that’s an important aspect. They should not be intimidated by the device or the app. One of the things while we were designing a larger grid site was that how do you ensure that they don’t become intimidated by it. The app shouldn’t intimidate. The app should make it easy for them. The app should make it inviting for them to come in and use the system more, so that they can model more language, and then the AAC user benefits in that.

That was another almost a design philosophy. Anytime we are adding a feature, we are like, “Okay. How is this going to be used by the communication partner? Is it going to make their lives easier as well? Can we do something where the technology can make their lives easier?” Those are [inaudible 00:23:08]. For example, in Avaz right now, the way some of the new features of what we call as a frozen [inaudible 00:23:16] is set up as that it’s really easy for parents to model and find words. They’re able to find words quickly, so hence they’ll be able to model quickly. That’s our thought process behind designing the new vocabulary. And the way we have arranged, we put a lot of thought into how the feelings folder is defined, how the layout of the words are… Everything that can help the speech therapist or the parent to communicate and model faster, but at the same time, but you’re also ensuring that for the AAC user, the motor planning remains the same.

We’ve tried to bridge the get the best of both worlds, and I think we’ve done a very good job of that. I would say my team has done a really good job of that, designing that. This is a feedback that we’ve received across the board over the last six months that this new vocabulary has been released. A lot of people, like Boston Public Schools, Boston Children’s Hospital, Loudoun County, a lot of big school districts are trying out Avaz, and they can see some of the thought process behind the vocabulary, and they’re really excited to use it with a few kids.

Awesome. That is awesome. Well, for our listeners who want to find out more, what’s a great way for them to do that?

Yes. We are on all social media. We are Avaz App, A-V-A-Z A-P-P. And then, we are Avazapp.com. You can find us at Avazapp.com, where all the website and all the information on the website is. And if you can drop us a note at hello@avazapp.com. If you’re a speech therapist or an assistive technology professional who would love to trial out the app, we would be very happy to work with you, give you an extended license for you to trial out the app with clients, and maybe even give you a quick walkthrough of the product as well. So, hello@avazapp.com. That is H-E-L-L-O at A-V-A-Z-A-P-P dot com.

Perfect. We’ll put all that down in the show notes. Narayanan, thank you so much for coming back on the show, for telling us about the updates, for telling us about Avaz, about everything that it can do, and again, some awesome updates. Again, fun. I mean, I just have to throw in fun. Fun for the user, fun for hopefully the people that are making it. Again, just for richer communication for everybody involved. Thanks again.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much, Josh. It was wonderful to be back here. Hope to be back soon with some more exciting things to share in a bit.

And we can’t wait.

Do you have a question about assistive technology? Do you have a suggestion for someone we should interview on Assistive Technology Update? If so, call our listener line at 317-721-7124. Send us an email at tech@eastersealscrossroads.org, or shoot us a note on Twitter @indataproject. Our captions and transcripts for the show are sponsored by the Indiana Telephone Relay Access Corporation or InTRAC. You can find out more about InTRAC at relayindiana.com.

Special thanks to Nikol Prieto for scheduling our amazing guests and making a mess of my schedule. Today’s show was produced, edited, hosted, and fraught over by yours truly. The opinions expressed by our guests are their own and may or may not reflect those of the INDATA Project, Easterseals Crossroads, our supporting partners, or this host. This was your Assistive Technology Update. I’m Josh Anderson with the INDATA Project at Easterseals Crossroads in beautiful Indianapolis, Indiana. We look forward to seeing you next time. Bye-bye.