Angel investing has become hot. Lots of people feel that it’s attractive because it can give you outsize returns. You can always hope to identify the next Google and become a multi-millionaire, because investments in startups potentially have the capability of becoming 100-baggers.
However, most startups fail, and the reason I am an angel investor is very different. I think investing is exciting because it gives me the the opportunity to find and fund a smart entrepreneur who can create a product which can potentially change the world. This is one of the reasons I’ve funded Avaz – Ajit Narayanan, the founder, is one of the smartest guys I’ve seen.
Rather than talk about how bright he is, I’d like you to go check out his product called Avaz FreeSpeech, which is now available for download on the Apple Store. I can assure you it will blow your mind away! Check out www.freespeechapp.com !
Ajit originally built FreeSpeech to help kids with disabilities to talk, but after spending a few days using it, I believe it can be used by pretty much anyone who needs to learn a language – kids, adults, and tourists.
We take our ability to talk and communicate for granted, because speech is such an integral part of our life. However, we forget that it takes time to learn a language.
Humans think in images – your brain visualises a picture, and then you communicate it to others. For example, if you are a baby and you are hungry, you visualise your mother, and you quickly learn that if you cry loudly, she will come and give you food. As you grow up, you learn that crying is no longer an acceptable form of communication, and your mother teaches you language skills, so you can converse with other humans. Because this is such a key survival tool, children spend a lot of time learning how to speak their mother tongue. Because children learn to speak intuitively, we start taking this ability for granted, which is why we sometimes forget that language is a very higher-order skill, and it takes time to master it. However, you are quickly reminded of this truth when you go overseas, and have to communicate with foreigners!
What makes FreeSpeech special is that it allows you to build your language skills using pictures. As you add pictures to a sentence, the app keeps suggesting more words that you can add, to make a more complex sentence. The best part is that the app is intelligent, and converts all of these pictures into a perfectly grammatical English sentence! It automatically puts the words in the right sequence, automatically figures out where to add little words like ‘to’ and ‘of’ and ‘the’, and even speaks out the final sentence. The app allows you to communicate in perfect English, even if you’re still learning the language.
FreeSpeech marries expertise from many different domains, such as natural language processing, machine learning and semantics. Communication is an integral part of human life, and FreeSpeech uses clever technology to help users to communicate with others. The platform can be used across multiple areas; for example, allowing patients with brain damage to converse.
It’s a cleverly crafted product, and I have been blown away by how much fun it is to use. I agree I am biased, but I think you will agree with me once you put it through its paces. I’ll be happy to refund your purchase price if you can tell me what you didn’t like about it!
