Key2enable Assistive Technology

I am the CCO & Co-Founder of Key2enable Assistive Technology. I am a Serial Entrepreneur with over 30 Years of experience in several areas focusing now on Business, Health, Education and Sales. 

I graduated in Electronics from the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil, and also hold a B.A in Business Administration from Newton Paiva University, Brazil.

I have a strong ability to manage high-performance teams, Solid knowledge in structuring new projects, Success in developing partnerships, Experience in business strategy, sustainability and negotiation skills. During the past 26 years, before the total dedication to Key2enable, I had more than 100 employees and worked with Brazil's Government and private Big Companies selling technology as a supplier of services and equipment. During more than 10 years I've held the exclusivity for selling big brands like Samsung, Epson, Lexmark, Sony, Planet, Trellis and another ones in my State.

Lack of literacy, numeracy and cognitive development, sometimes allied to motor skills, impact the future with diseases, disabilities and the future of work. 

Key2enable empowers People with motor, physical and intellectual disabilities to develop their skills and individualities by providing innovative Assistive-Technology tools that together with a unique inclusive educational platform for school inclusion, changes the way and the hard time that children with disabilities face school, greatly increasing the possibility that they will be self-sufficient in the future. We understand that there are cases that are more serious, but we need to remember that in each person we find different skills. With our solution it will be possible to start the most assertive interventions in early childhood. When we change the life of this child, we also change the lives of his family and the community where they live. This is how we will really integrate them in society!

We solve the problem of people with disabilities that are unable to use computers and mobile devices due to motion limitations of lack of fine motor coordination. More than 3% of a population have physical or motor disabilities, and more than 15% have other types of disabilities. According to Coherent Market Insights, globally, more than 1 billion people need 1 or more Assistive Technology products. The lack of a complete platform that can help teachers or professionals in the field of inclusion to improve the way they welcome these children into the school and inside regular classrooms, so that they can learn more quickly and at the same time with quality, completely disrupts the future of this individual taking away his chances of being self-sustainable. Not educating them means losing the possibility of knowing his skills in the future. Without the right technological tools, teachers won't be able to provide them with digital literacy as well as the durable skills needed to stay updated with the changing job market and economic downturns they will face in the future. So, we have to change it now, in their early childhood.

We have an essential set of Assistive Technology that enables people with disabilities that are unable to use computers and mobile devices due to motion limitations or lack of fine-motor coordination. Our solution Key-x primarily works as a keyboard and a mouse and brings digital accessibility to people with disabilities by providing innovative tools for accessing computers with greater autonomy even using eye blinks or slight body gestures, for communicating, learning, gaming and working. Together with our educational platform, people with intellectual disabilities efficiently learn with a pleasant platform with gamification and Artificial intelligence to measure their development and propose new tasks and activities reducing the time they take to learn. The innovation of our solution resides in its design, built to fit a wide variety of motion limitations while being compatible with any computer, smartphones or tablet. Our device can be used by children and adults. Some of the disabilities that we help: Cerebral Palsy, Motor sequels of strokes, Sequels of spinal cord injuries, ALS,Parkinson's disease, Intellectual disabilities (including Down syndrome and many cases of autism). Using our software we can detect in childhood, some dysfunctions that could be taken care of when they are in the beginning.

We are working in many states and cities in Brazil, Chile, Mexico, The USA and the UAE. In only one city we are helping more than 3000 children with Down syndrome, different degrees of autism, physical and motor disabilities, to show their skills and taking some of them out of the invisibility. Seeing your child communicate with the world is one of the greatest wishes of parents of children with disabilities. And this achievement was made possible by the use of technologies that help students learn in the public school system. We train the teachers to use all the solution with the children. Diagnosed with cerebral palsy at birth, Amanda Cabral, 10, is in her fifth year of elementary school and is now able to express herself and use a laptop to attend classes with her classmates. The same happened to Alison, 12 year old, who was learning in a separate room, and when our solution was installed in his schools, as soon as he started using it, he asked his teacher to write a book because he had an story to tell. The municipality published his book last year. It will completely  impact all his community future positively.

We develop innovative assistive technology, and one of our solutions is Key-x, a panel that enables people with motor, physical, and intellectual disabilities to fulfill their real potential. We also provide an educational platform that, allied with the keyboard, enables our users to communicate, learn, play, improve their language proficiency, and execute math calculations. People with disabilities are usually kept at home and left behind. We provide them with the same opportunities of going to school, learning, and succeeding. By doing this in early childhood, the better are the chances of stimulating a child's brain, giving them confidence and autonomy.

It all started with Gleison. He was born with cerebral palsy in a small town in Brazil. His mother believed that if his brain was stimulated the same way that children without disabilities are, he could have a chance to live in a better condition.  

She took him to a rehabilitation center, and there was a teacher that saw that Gleison was responding to many commands. She decided to teach him the Alphabet and after some time teach him the school curriculum. Many years later he graduated in computer science and had an idea to improve the way he could use a computer and shorten the time it took him to graduate. Together with him we created our solutions. After two years of prototyping, the keyboard turned into a real product, and we went to the field. We went inside schools, rehabilitation centers and associations to test it. It was amazing! The results in some cases were almost immediately. Kids started writing what they had in mind. During the next years we've build many other assistive technology that nowadays attend more than 85% of all disabilities found inside these places. We also build an Artificial intelligence educational platform.

Organizations talk about giving jobs or enabling people with disabilities to be economically sustainable, but first we need to educate them, and to educate them we need to include them in schools, in society, and in our lives. MIT SOLVE core values are inside our Mission and value proposition. We need tolerance, to achieve the development of People with disabilities to improve autonomy and make their lives become more sustainable. My inspiration came when in 2008, together with my team, we developed a complete solution for children from 4 to 90 years old, to learn music theory with a piano keyboard we had created, together with a gamification platform that children learned while they were playing. There are thousands of articles that say that we can change a human soul if this person until the age of 7, learns music playing an instrument. And we did it using technology. But suddenly, a girl with cerebral palsy tried to use our solution and it was very difficult for her. So we developed a big keyboard and when she touched and a sound came, she instantly started moving her arm that was non-functional for a long time. After that, my life changed.

I would describe myself as a friendly, go-getter type of person. I love connecting with people and build powerful network.

I graduated in Electronics and also in Business Administration. But I am also a programmer, working in sales for the past 30 years, Speaker, Serial Entrepreneur and I have an educational background in international business and Public Education and years of experience working in an innovation environment. 

in October 2017, when I completed 47 years-old, I decided that I had to show to the world what our end-users, mainly children with severe-motor disabilities were achieving. From the beginning of 2018 until now, I won almost 25 prizes and certificates to foster our solution for more children with disabilities around the world. I wish I was younger but I understand that at my age we want to focus and get things done! Below are some of my recognition.

1-Singularity University California Portfolio company- www.su.org/ventures

2–Berkeley Haas California winner of Global-Social-Venture-Competition- 700 Startups from 57 countries.  https://bit.ly/3gAhJd4

3-December-2018–Winner of Edtech competition Kryptolabs Abu Dhabi. 800 applications from all around the world.  https://www.entrepreneur.com/a...

4–March-2019 (400+ applications from all over the world) We won category Education of Special world games Innovation Challenge competition, Abu Dhabi, https://bit.ly/2vXAGEU

5–Selected for the incubation program held by the Authority of Social Contribution from the Department-of-Community-Development in Abu Dhabi, Ma’an (September-2019). https://bit.ly/2W68kDg

6-first place at the main competition for startups in the UAE, the GITEX-Superstars-Supernova-Challenge in October-2019 -4000 applicants

https://bit.ly/2wPemx8

7-The Mohammed Bin Rashid Innovation Fund (MBRIF) Accelerator program.https://bit.ly/33b8Pxl

Until 2007 I was the owner of a company that sold computers in Brazil. I have sold tens of thousands of computers for more than 20 years and I know that somehow I contributed with these people so they achieved their goals. Thousands of them I met personally and indicated the best-solution. But in 2008, when I started to build the solution of teaching music to children, and I understood that it could change a life forever,I changed my mindset and became a social-entrepreneur. I have been creating other social-Impact solutions since then. I confess that I even sold my house to achieve my dream of creating a project that would change millions of lives, and it hasn't been easy at all. But I seriously believe that this is my destiny and the proof of that is in the smile of thousands of children who are already changing their lives and sending me pictures and telling me about their achievements. My family is with me in this dream and it is for them and these children that I will not stop until I succeed. Believe me as a Brazilian I had all kinds of obstacles, but I am always ready.

In Brazil, it took us a long time to incorporate the lean model of startups in business. This only started more often after 2015/2016. As I started my businesses much earlier, back in 1988 I had to make decisions that would lead me to the success of those small businesses I had. In 2006 I had more than 100 employees. At that time I was one of the biggest computer sellers and accessories in my State. However, I sensed that this phase of selling computers in face-to-face stores would not last long after some signs of growth of e-commerce in Brazil. I made an important decision and a big transition in 1 year to modify our sales strategies to be e-commerce ready and also started to develop software and applications during 2006. After that I made several other decisions, always together with my staff and my employees. I always highlighted the importance of my team. When I had to reduce my face-to-face business, I managed to relocate practically all my employees to other companies. I believe I made a good leadership because there was never any problem with any of them. They still run a Facebook group of ex-employees.

To better understand our technology, we encourage everybody to look at some videos because "Seeing is Believing" in our case. Key-x and its accessories give autonomy, privacy, and empower people with disabilities to use tablets, computers, and smartphones. They will be able to communicate and learn. Also, by doing that, we bring them to our technological world and open all the exponential possibilities they have.

Please take a look in this link to know more about our story

Key2enable developed during the last four years a complete set of Assistive Technology composed by hardware and Software solutions that together attends more than 80% of all disabilities found inside schools and rehabilitation centers. 

The Key- X multi functional keyboard solution is a unique innovation of its kind. Most of our competitors offer communication devices to enable individuals with disabilities to use technology. Most of them are not compatible with different operating systems (i.e. Windows, Mac, Linux, Android, Tablets, etc).

Many have several limitations that make them ineffective for use by people with various forms of physical, motor, and intellectual disabilities. Key2enable developed an ALL-IN-ONE solution with which ANY other Assistive-Technology in the market can be connected, enabling them to communicate, learn, work, play, deliver content, local or on-line,curriculum-based or otherwise, to their homes, schools, clinics, and rehabilitation centers.

The novelty of our innovation also resides in the possibility of our solution to accept all other peripherals and accessories of Assistive technology manufactured by other companies, making our solution unique and thereby facilitating their use by our end users, including with reuse of technologies that alone no longer made sense.

It is also present in Universal Design, which is the possibility that a person without disabilities may use the solution.

Key2enable empowers People with disabilities to develop their skills and individualities by providing innovative Assistive Technology tools that together with a unique inclusive educational platform for school inclusion, allow them to efficiently use computers and mobile devices for communicating, learning, gaming, work and ultimately live with greater autonomy to be economically sustainable in the future. For Schools, rehabilitation centers, and Healthcare professionals, we install all the solutions inside the classrooms, and we train the teachers and the caretakers to use them with the children or the patient. By doing that, we give them autonomy, so they become the main actors in their learning process, which, of course, will shorten the time they usually take to develop their skills. 

This is our IMPACT: Full integration of people of determination in society by leveraging technology to communicate, learn, play, engage and work self sufficiently and be economically sustainable.

Our outcomes:

Brain stimulation for early childhood, Teachers of Special education are being trained to use the solution with their students, professionals who work in rehabilitation centers and also those who have their own clinic are being empowered to use the solution with their patients, Social campaigns are being released to increase the knowledge by companies and organizations that people with disabilities will be able to work with the right tools, Companies and organizations that want to provide job to people with disabilities are aware of our technology , have a partnership or a network of partners, from the private sector and also with the not-for-profit world, government entities that adopting the platform, a solution for job placement and job creation.

Until now, in Brazil, we have been bootstrapping our solution and we achieved more than 5000 people. We are serving 400 schools and 110 rehabilitation centers. We are already profitable in that region. In one year from now we plan to reach at least 30.000 children if no investment or grant come, but we plan to reach 1.000.000 with grants and investments. Upon completing 5 years our predictions without investment we understand we will reach near 300.000 people with disabilities. We are talking about real use. They will be inside schools and rehabilitation centers using it to thrive. They will be using it in a daily basis. They need our solution to shorten the time it takes for them to learn. So this is not like a software that you download and never use it anymore. We are talking about real people using them.

With the right investment, the right investor and the perfect team we know how to build, We want to multiply the idea of making pilots inside schools and rehabilitation centers so that hundreds of thousands of people with disabilities can have massive access. In one year from now we plan to reach at least 30000 children if no investment or grant come, but we plan to reach 1.000.000 with grants and investments. Upon completing 5 years our predictions are very bold mainly in the MENA region, India and Africa, but we are fully convinced that they can be achieved by the simple fact that there is not yet a complete tool to assist teachers of special education in their tasks and even with the power to decrease the time that a child with a disability takes time to actually learning a school curriculum. We have the goal to reach 1.000.000 people with disabilities in the next 5 years. The explanation of the number placed above is precisely in the power of multiplication of a solution that works and helps the professionals who take care of these people. When knowing that the solution brings the expected result and still facilitates their work so that they can serve more people, the power of the indication will make the solution spread. 

The number one barrier is financial, as we don’t have all the money necessary (yet) to attend all the markets that we want to go and help these children/persons. Our factory in Brazil is still small, but we are upgrading it with all the sales in Brazil.

Our team is still small, splitting founders in different countries, but already projecting to hire people to work within different areas.

Another barrier is cultural, as the schools over the years always told families with kids with severe motor disabilities that “they don’t have anything to help these kids there, and that would be better for them if they keep their kids at home”. Because of that, lots of times we hear from people at the schools “we don’t have anyone in here that needs your solution”. That’s the reason we are working along with foundations, conducting free workshops and piloting to show them that we exist, and it works, so they can go to the schools and tell them “now there is a real solution for these kids to be included in the regular school.”

We are working to change all this; we are looking for some pre-seed money and our office in Abu Dhabi has been approved for two government grants that will help with money structure and will help us pay for 10 employees for 36 months.

With our team experience working with technology and factories in China for the past 20 years, we’ve contacted some old suppliers in China that will start manufacture some parts for us, to speed up the process to make up for big orders. We are already working with Foundation and organizations throughout the world with adds and workshops, so the families are checking on our solution and take to the schools.

We are working with 15 municipalities in Brazil, 110 rehabilitation centers and many NGO's. Google for education in Brazil.

In the US:

Georgia Institute of Technology and Georgia Tech Research Institute on technology development and a broader research partnership

Berkeley Haas University, Singularity University (SU.ORG) and Arch Grants in St Louis. 

We were accelerated by all of them and they introduced us to a unique network. We are working on some isolated projects. Mainly in St. Louis where we opened an office inside T-REX. They are helping us with some rehabilitation centers in the city.

In Chile: Teleton and some NGO's and associations - We are piloting our solutions inside their facilities.

In the United Arab Emirates: Authority of Social contribution, Department of Community development and the Ministry of Education. We are piloting our solution. We started in March 2020.

Until 2007 I was the owner of a company that sold computers in Brazil. I have sold tens of thousands of computers for more than 20 years and I know that somehow, I contributed with these people so they achieved their goals. Thousands of them I met personally and indicated the best solution. But in 2008, when I started to build the solution of teaching music to children, and I understood that it could change a life forever,I changed my mindset and became a social entrepreneur. I have been creating other social Impact solutions since then. I confess that I even sold my house to achieve my dream of creating a project that would change millions of lives, and it hasn't been easy at all. But I seriously believe that this is my destiny and the proof of that is in the smile of thousands of children who are already changing their lives and sending me pictures and telling me about their achievements. My family is with me in this dream and it is for them and these children that I will not stop until I succeed. This fantastic opportunity at MIT SOLVE has embraced me and that's why I want to be a SOLVER and I am applying for this life-change opportunity. This prize may be not enough for some startups, but for us it means SCALABILITY. We have everything ready to start creating the BIG PICTURE. We just need need the perfect fund from the perfect partner.   

We have a solution that works. We are already profitable but we still can not afford to build the same market and success we have in Brazil in all markets we want. We need the best marketing people to follow us and publicize what we have been doing. Unfortunately what happens in Brazil stays there most of the times. We have thousands of children changing their lives and their family lives forever and we need to monitor and evaluate that. We need to build deep analytical reports to show what the results are changing their lives. That's why we need to fund raise. We also need to have a perfect product distribution to distribute the success we have. We need the perfect partners. But we can't stop to do everything because our team is a hard working small one.

We won first place of the Global social Venture competition in 2019 at Berkeley Haas University California. Please check: GSVC - BERKELEY

And it was very important for us. But we were not ready for investment at that time. Why I am saying this? Because 2019 and 2020 until April we won many competitions around the world. And that made me feel that we are on the right track. It also made me dream to connect with Microsoft and Google. But not only connect. We can completely disrupt special education by making Microsoft for education and google for education to be really inclusive! I have been following their traction in Brazil, in the US and now in the United Arab Emirates. They ARE NOT including people with disabilities as they should be. We want to give them our solution. We want them to make EVERY child with disability in the planet earth to use our solution. So, my dream is to stop thinking about selling our solution every day to survive for the next month,  and share it with anyone who really need it. But I think that the only possibility is to partner with one of these two giants. We were chosen by Microsoft for Startups Middle East last month and I am talking to some people, but I think that MIT SOLVE is the best option to let them understand what I have in mind.