Four years after AUT PhD student Jarek Beksa won the AUTEL Innovation Challenge and the $5000 prize, he and his team established Sonnar, a start-up business which Jarek describes as “Spotify for interactive accessible books on smart speakers” and plans to go from local to global.
Originally a biomedical engineer and physicist, Jarek moved from Poland to New Zealand to do a PhD on designing interfaces to provide games for people who are blind. “I was looking for an opportunity where I could work on my thesis full-time and be in the headspace to pursue it fully. I chose New Zealand and AUT,” says Jarek.
His research began whilst employed full-time at a Polish telecom and experimenting with speech recognition and voice-activated technologies. “The concept for Sonnar developed when I met a blind person who shared with me that nobody makes games for us”.
In 2016, Jarek and his fellow AUT students launched Audio Game Hub, a video game app which allows blind people to play games using voice-activated technology. After receiving positive user feedback, the team completed a highly successful Kickstarter campaign to further fund their work with additional support from AUT Ventures. “We didn’t invent new games. We just transformed existing into audio space”, shares Jarek.
Three years on, Audio Game Hub accumulated over 200,000 downloads worldwide, received multiple awards including a nomination in the prestigious 2018 Google Play Awards for Best Accessibility Experience. “Whilst we didn’t win, it was an amazing achievement to be.recognised by Google and to know our work is making a significant impact in people’s lives”.
With Audio Game Hub’s commitment towards greater inclusivity in games and introduction of Alexa to New Zealand, the Sonnar team realised the potential to take their business to the next level. “Alexa is the most accessible device ever as it is completely voice activated and offers us the opportunity to do something no one has ever done before.''
The opportunity to push boundaries eventuated when the Blind Foundation New Zealand approached Sonnar to develop an application which would allow access to their digital library of audiobooks. “Essentially a user can say - Alexa I would like to read Harry Potter and it will begin to stream. Our team had to design the whole user interaction, especially for people who are older. We had one lady who was 93 and had never used a smartphone before. She was able to use our device without any difficulties”.
Sonnar has received invaluable support from AUT Ventures provide funding, commercialisation expertise, start-up proposal documentation and guidance. AUT Ventures works in collaboration with upcoming AUT student, graduate and staff businesses and provides an innovation platform to connect companies with investors, local and global businesses and offers beneficial networking opportunities to develop start-up ideas to bring them to life. Jarek’s journey wouldn’t have been possible without the support and business acumen of AUT Ventures. The more people you know the easier it is to get your business off the ground. We met some really interesting people who liked the idea and have already put us in contact with people who can assist us with funding and other areas,” says Jarek. Through Sonnar’s affiliation with AUT Ventures, he and his fellow teammates learned how to pitch effectively and communicate their business vision in a succinct manner.
Sonnar Interactive continued to innovate and develop products to improve accessibility for its users. The team decided to enter the AUT X-Challenge, an entrepreneurial competition for current AUT students to develop and pitch their start-up to industry judges. Sonnar was awarded Supreme Winner and received a share of the $40,000 cash prize.
With plans to expand their current offerings, Jarek explains how foundations will be able to increase their access to digital libraries. “Our new product will allow the foundations around the world to put their books into one bucket and exchange their books with each other. It means the Blind Foundation in New Zealand would have access to the global library of half a million books instead of thirty thousand which they have at the moment.”
The future glows brightly for Sonnar with plans to go global. “We want to expand to Australia, the UK, US, Canada and South America. We want to go big. We’re basically going worldwide”.