Cognixion gives voice to a user’s thoughts
Alexa Fund company’s assisted reality tech could unlock speech for hundreds of millions of people who struggle to communicate.
In 2012, Andreas Forsland, founder and CEO of Alexa Fund company Cognixion, became the primary caregiver and communicator for his mother. She was hospitalized with complications from pneumonia and unable to speak for herself.
“That experience opened my eyes to how precious speech really is,” Forsland says. According to a Cognixion analysis of over 1,200 relevant research papers, more than half a billion people worldwide struggle to speak clearly or at conversational speeds, which can hamper their interactions with others and full participation in society.
Forsland wondered whether a technology solution would be feasible and started Cognixion in 2014 to explore that possibility. “We had the gumption to think, ‘Wouldn’t it be neat to have a thought-to-speech interface that just reads your mind?’ We were naïve and curious at the same time.”
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