Changing lives of special need children - Interview with CEO, WonderTree

BR Research recently met Muhammad Waqas, co-founder of technology start-up Wonder Tree. His business is all about creating social impact. Waqas along with his dedicated and passionate team are using technology for a cause. They are using augmented reality for the therapy and education of children with special needs.

Their aim is to make special educationand therapy cost effective, efficient and accessible to all. BR Research discussed the thought process behind his concept, the business modalities, and growth opportunities with Waqas. His idea recently won an award hosted by Shell Tameer.

WonderTree is a social enterprise concerned with education and therapy of special kids. It designs Augmented Reality based video games that are skill builders and self therapy providers. This makes special education and therapy cost effective, efficient and accessible to all. The games are made to equip with a specific skill and gives off progress reports in real time.

WonderTree got Pakistan noticed at The GIST 2016 held at Silicon Valley by securing third spot competing along 1072 global startups. With a long list of representations made locally and abroad. The startup has won numerous awards including P@SHA Awards 2016 in Pakistan and APICTA (Asia Pacific ICT Alliance) Awards 2016 held in Taipei.

Below are edited excerpts from the conversation.

BRResearch: How did this whole idea of the start-up come about, considering you come from an entirely different professional background?

Muhammad Waqas: I have a marketing and advertising background and I have switched a couple of jobs, as I felt I was not getting the growth and learning that I wanted. I was a strategic planner before this, and then I started my own digital marketing agency.

I wanted to do something that could change peoples lives. My co-founder came up with this idea as he has an elder brother with special needs.

He asked for my help with the business development and marketing. To me, this looked very challenging and something that has not been done before. We did a trial run for 1.5 months. I felt this could make an impact not just in Pakistan, but in the world. However, there is a lot of work and challenges involved.

I had to choose between this and my business, which at that point had become stable and had started to earn revenues, but I eventually had to shut that down. We started with a team of three people 1.5 years ago. We were clueless initially but we had a passionto create an impact in the society.

BRR: Educate us more on WonderTrees technical specifications and the impact that you want to make through the platform?

MW: WonderTree is a software platform based on augmented reality for the therapy and education of children with special needs. We are developing games based on augmented reality, which are essentially your special education curriculum and therapy exercises.

Every time your child plays a game, you get a progress report as well. Each game caters towards a certain disability and building a certain capacity in a child.

We are focusing on very core and basic skills right now, such as hand coordination, left or right movemnet, reflex actions, reflexes, cognitive ability, decision making, basic alphabets etc

BRR: Is it directed towards a specific disability?

MW: It is not directed towards a specific disability as such. We are building capacities in three areas, functional, cognitive, and motor. Normal children or anyone who lacks any of these three can play our games. The mental age for playing these games is from 4-12 years old.

BRR: Where did the technical expertise come from?

MW: When we talk about technical structure, we are combining thee spaces, hardcore level programming, education, and the medical side where you need to involve psychologists and therapists.

The programming side came from my co-founder. As far as the educational and medical expertise is concerned, we have an advisory board for that. We have special schools and teachers on board with us to help us with the curriculum. Theytest the game first, and determine whether it will work on the children or not and suggest changes. Similarly we have an advisory board of medical experts consisting of psychologists and therapists.

BRR: Do we have an example in Pakistan of such a venture?

MW: We are the only ones in Pakistan doing this. Even globally, this is something that has not been given enough attention before. There are around three competitors,two of them are from Europe, and have been operating for only 1.5 or two years.

They are doing something similar but not exactly what we are doing. In terms of application of the games, we are one step ahead of them. They are using something very similar to playing video games like Nintendo, whereas we are using the principle of augmented reality, in which the child can actually see himself playing the game.

BRR: How has the response been so far, both in terms of usage growth and feedback?

MW: The response has been nothing short of phenomenal. We have tried our games out in three schools. The attention span improvedaround 50 to 70 percent, their cognitive response improved around 40-60 percent and their motor skills also improved by around 40-50 percent.

Some children really catch our attention. We have examples where an individual, after switching him to WonderTree,increased his attention span from two to 15 minutes. Now the teachers use these games as a reward for good work and behavior.

The reason why these children love playing these games is because they see themselves playing the game. They get motivated when they see themselves accomplishing tasks and winning.

We are right now in the beta version. We donot have the medical and educational expertise, but we have started to get this from. This venture has a lot of potential and is very promising.

BRR: In terms of business growth strictly, how quickly have you grown?

MW: In a country where normal children are not given much attention in terms of education, it is a very big challenge for us to make people realise that they need to give attention to this.

Our efforts and the recognition is has earned for us has worked in our favour. When we visit special needs education institutes, there are high chances that they have heard of us and are ready to facilitate us.

In January this year, we deployed our games in Ziauddin Hospital,and we are already talking to Aga Khan , Liaquat National, Indus Hospital and others.

BRR: Do you have the big schools for special needs on board?

MW: Big schools do not include special schools as they are usually run by parents with special needs children. Trusts and NGOs are already running hand to mouth. We would like to give them our games for free, but we are a start up, not an NGO.

We also want to prove that good businesses can exist where one can make money while benefitting the society

BRR: Do you plan on deploying your games for free to NGOs?

MW: Not at the moment. The revenue model is subscription based. We charge semiannually or annual fee from schools. The price is negotiated with schools as there are certain fixed costs that we cannot go below.

BRR: Do you have to physically approach people to market your product?

MW: Yes we go and meet people, but sometimes hospitals and schools approach us too. They get to know about us through word of mouth. We have a very big community support which includes parents,psychologists, therapists who have seen our products and promote us. However, since this is a software, our future goal is to make it downloadable anywhere in the world by the click of a button.

BRR: At any stage would you plan on outsourcing the medical side?

MW: Start ups operate very differently from a normal business. We battle for survival and growth every day.

We are currently only collaborating with psychologists and therapists. We wrote a research paper with IPP Institute of professional psychology. We collaborated with Ms. Shabnam, PhD psychology, for the games. We conducted trials, and published the study in a journal.

We have been working pro bono with these institutions. They get to publish a paper and we get to validate our product.

BRR : Do individuals also approach you, do you plan to target them aswell?

MW: Individuals from outside Pakistan have approached us, but we have kept them on the waiting list as we are still figuring out payments solutions with them.

We are trying to put up the games on windows store so that people can install them easily. As soon as that is done we will start marketing to individuals internationally

BRR: What else does it take to launch internationally other than putting up the games on Windows store?

MW: We are looking into compliance to enter the US or international market. There are certain clearances we need from Windows as well. As soon as that is done, these game will be available internationally.

We want to launch the games properly and officially so that our first customers become our beta testers also become our collaborators.

BRR: Does it require heavy investment?

MW: Investment always helps. We are a team of 8 people and are very diversified. Each individual is doing atleast four tasks at once whichcauses a lot of delays.Our existing customers require changes and improvement. We are also fixing bugs and developing more games.

BRR: Does it require a certain level of skill to be able to sustain in the long run?

MW: We have been sustaining ourselves through grants right now and winning business competitions. Ziauddin and the three schools I mentioned earlier, are paying us but in order to grow we need more payments.

BRR: Can you take conventional banking loan or is it too difficult for you?

MW: We haven't explored that area. We are still in the phase where we have to prove to people and investors that this idea would work.

BRR: What does it take to be an entrepreneur?

MW: Being an entrepreneur is not easy. But I find it rewarding in its own ways. It is about the mindset. It is a lifestyle. And a choice that one makes. I believe you need to have a constant knack for learning, being flexible, and most importantly you must be willing to get up one more time than you have been knocked down.

BRR: Are you also working beyond Karachi?

MW: We are operating in Islamabad as well, but our core focus is in Karachi because that the most easily accessible market. As soon as we start getting more funding, and once we have established ourselves in Karachi, then we'll move outside

BRR: If you go international, how would that work out in terms of targeting people?

MW: Internationally, people are aware are very acceptable to the fact that such an application exists. Even our clinical trials and word of mouth will help.

The Pakistani mindset is very different. They do not trust a product made in Pakistan by Pakistanis. The doors only started opening to us when we won an award at the Stanford University.