A brother with autism led to this
software startup
By: Will Thwaites
Photo by Will ThwaitesKaite Hench
Katie Hench's younger brother was
diagnosed with autism at the age of 6. The diagnosis came late for how severe
his characteristics were, but in rural Ohio where they grew up in the '90s,
understanding of the disorder was limited. “I watched my parents struggle to
find the right resources for him and struggle to help the school understand the
needs that he had,” Hench says.
Parents and teachers struggle today, too,
as the number of diagnoses of autistic children rises—1 of every 68 is
diagnosed with some degree of autism. To help them, Hench took her expertise as
a special-education teacher and applied it to a scalable pursuit: developing
educational iPad apps for children with autism. Along with co-founders
Christopher Flint and Lally Daley, Hench, 32, launched Infiniteach in
2013.
Though none of Infiniteach's founders
knew how to write software, Hench's master's degree from the University of
Notre Dame's Mendoza College of Business gave them the confidence they needed
to dive into entrepreneurship. Using money from family and friends, they hired
contract developers to do the initial coding. Since then, Infiniteach has
garnered nearly 60,000 downloads of its first app, Skill Champ, which teaches
10 lessons, such as recognizing emotions and matching colors.
“We led with our passion,” says Hench, the startup's CEO.
What makes the company attractive to
investors—it received $320,000 in a second round of funding in May—is that
social impact and financial success are inseparable. This also is why
Infiniteach was admitted into Impact Engine's 2014 class of startups and given
a total of $40,000 by the accelerator.
“We look for companies where the social
impact is baked into the product,” says Jessica Droste Yagan, CEO of
Chicago-based Impact Engine. “The more they
sell their product, the more they are creating affordable access to
early-intervention autism resources.”
This year, Infiniteach doubled its
headcount to six. It also moved into Literacenter, a new workspace in West Loop
“focused exclusively on literacy organizations.” And this month, it will launch
its second application, Infiniteach: Autism Core Skills. The application, which
costs $100 a year, features activities, such as counting objects or matching
shapes, that cover three areas of development: academic (reading and math),
social and communication.
It will compete with digital products
geared toward children with autism, such as VizZle from Monarch
Teaching Technologies and Camp Discovery from
the Center for Autism and Related Disorders, as well software for a more
general audience of early learners, such as Starfall from Starfall
Education Foundation.
While Infiniteach: Autism Core Skills is
customizable and Common Core-aligned, one of app's biggest assets is backend
data collection. Parents, educators and therapists can track a student's
progress, adjusting their approach accordingly.
As for Hench's brother, he's now 27,
works at a day program and competes in Special Olympics sports. “He still faces
challenges,” she says, “but overall is doing really well.”
