Wake Forest University educators launch firm to sell Verbal Victor app

The Wake Forest University professor who spearheaded the development of a smartphone and iPad app to help his speech-disabled son and others like him has started a company to commercialize the program.

Paúl Pauca, an associate professor of computer science, co-founded Apps for the Greater Good to commercialize the Verbal Victor app and develop new products. Pauca is working with graduate student Scott Graber, who is president of the new firm.

Pauca came up with the idea for Verbal Victor through frustration at the cost and complexity of other tools available to help children like his own son Victor, who suffers from the genetic disease Pitt Hopkins Syndrome, which delayed his ability to communicate through speech.

Verbal Victor allows parents or teachers to associate recordings of their own voices to pictures of common items, which the child can select by pushing an on-screen button. Read more.

Wake Forest researchers empower those without a voice

Victor Pauca is well known among the Wake Forest University community. Now, thanks to the work of a young journalist, others around the country will soon learn of his inspiring story about finding his voice.

Victor, a happy, social six-year-old has Pitt Hopkins Syndrome, a rare genetic disorder that has delayed his development, but not his spirit. His father, Paúl Pauca, an associate professor of Computer Science at Wake Forest, and a team of students created “Verbal Victor,” an iPhone/iPad app to provide an affordable alternative to expensive communication devices.

What started out as Pauca’s desire to help his son has turned into an international mission to help people all over the world embrace and empower their loved ones with disabilities. Developed with support from the University's Center for Innovation, Creativity, and Entrepreneurship, Verbal Victor has been downloaded nearly 3,000 times and featured by the Associated Press, USA Today and CNN. It has enabled children from Korea to Switzerland communicate in a way that was not affordable before. Read more.

Two Apps to be Presented at Winston Salem Chamber of Commerce Tech Briefing on September 15th

Smartphones in the U.S. are expected to overtake feature phones by the end of 2011 (Nielsenwire, March 2010); therefore, it is no wonder that “there’s an app for that” can be said for virtually everything. At the 2011 Tech Briefing on September 15th, audience members will get to hear about two different apps, locally created and developed.

The Treks in the City™ mobile application, created by Winston-Salem based technology company, Small Footprint, uses geo-location technology to identify the users' current location in proximity to a host of other mapped locations. Users who download the application are able to experience the following functionality:

• Select a Trek and tour the area using particular area of interest, such as Architecture, Entertainment or the locations of four annual scavenger hunts held in the downtown area.

• Easily find downtown locations and get walking directions from the current location.

• Share pictures and comments on various Trek locations.

• Visit a related Web site or place a call to a destination directly from the Treks in the City™ mobile application.

Verbal Victor, an iphone app created by Wake Forest University Assistant Computer Science Professor Paúl Pauca, is designed to help children with development disabilities communicate better. Paúl’s son Victor was born with a rare genetic disorder that causes delays in cognitive abilities, motor skills, and social development and language skills. Paúl wanted to find a way to help Victor communicate better but found that the available therapeutic tools were very primitive, difficult to use and costly. With the help of students in his computer science class, he developed an application that with a touch of the screen allowed Victor to communicate such things as “I want to play” with a graphic image of toys or “I want to eat “ with an image of food.

Learn more about these apps and how they came to be at the Tech Briefing on September 15 at 8 a.m at the Benton Convention Center.

App Helps Those with Communication Disabilities Find a Voice

Professor Victor Pauca and computer science students at Wake Forest University have developed an app that can be used on an ipod or iphone to help those with verbal disabilities communicate. Pauca's five year old son Victor, has a rare disorder that severely hampers his development including language skills. The app, called the Verbal Victor, has a series of pictures that can have audio recorded onto them. When the child wishes to communicate something they simply push on the picture and their aim is understood. Because the app uses recording as opposed to a robotic sounding voice, the children become much more comfortable using the app to communicate in the first place. The Verbal Victor app is available at Apple stores for $10 a download compared to other communication devices that might cost thousands of dollars.

CNN captures the Verbal Victor in action at home with Victor Pauca and his family

http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2011/01/17/dnt.ipad.helps.boy.talk.WFMY?hpt=C2