A new day has come. And what a journey it’s been.
By: Robert Reichmann, Chairman; Visr Inc.
As Visr embarks on the next phase of its journey, I am happy to announce some changes to Visr’s leadership team that are designed to move the company in an exciting new direction. David Van Bruwaene is transitioning into the role of Visr’s CEO. Dave has been our lead data scientist since day one — but is so much more than that. He provides a deep level of understanding into the product’s applications and how it can be positioned into new markets. He has long provided Visr with thoughtful insight and recommendations for company strategy that I’ve learned to trust. I could not be happier knowing that Dave will be taking over and leading our company into new markets that establish Visr as the leading conversational data analytics company. I look forward to continuing my work with the company by serving as Chairman of Visr’s board of directors.
I thought this would be a great opportunity to share a brief history of how we started, how we got here and where we’re headed.
Just a few years ago, we set out to change the face of parenting. At a time when kid’s social media use was rising rapidly, issues like cyberbullying, anxiety, depression and suicide were becoming more prevalent. Instead of controlling children’s activity, we set out to offer a smart solution which would let parents know about potential issues, while giving kids the freedom to explore. We worked (and continue to work) alongside social networks, analyzing social activity — informing parents when a potential issue is detected.
It was an exciting period in our company, with fantastic highlights including strong user growth , press attention, and a chance to advocate for child safety alongside Prince William. We built strong relationships and enjoyed constant feedback from parents, educators and industry leaders.
About a year ago we faced a difficult situation. Our customers were clamouring for access to Snapchat, Kik, and Whatsapp, but these social networks did not offer API’s from which to draw children’s social data. Meanwhile, we were losing access to some of the data we previously relied on from other APIs. Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube each cut off access to comment streams and other pieces of data that helped to give context to posts. To be sure, we were not the only ones hit — many, many companies that acted on behalf of users and their data were cut off by the feet. YouTube actually reached out to us, informing us in advance about the change and that they felt bad about our loss of access in particular.
As data access became more scarce, we paused and asked a truly difficult question. Could we deliver on our original vision to provide parents with comprehensive insight into their children’s safety and well-being online. After a long hard look in the mirror we realized that we could not access enough data to live up to our original vision.
We then decided to appeal to everyone we could to try to expand our access to data. I reached out personally to about 100 people across the industry, speaking to anyone I could — including many senior executives at major companies including Facebook and Google — asking for an opportunity to work together. It didn’t take too long to realize this would not happen.
After taking a hard look in the mirror we recognized it was time to pivot. Lucky for us, from very early on we recognized that our success hinged on our AI and data processing capabilities. We invested heavily on our backend system, including employing Dave Van Bruwaene — a PhD in semantic linguistics and philosophy, as our lead data scientist — as well as a number of amazing AI friends, consultants and advisors to help us along the way.
Interestingly, some of the companies we had reached out to mentioned that they’d be very interested in licensing the platform. Points of entry included digital forensics companies, HR compliance, corporate security, edtech, institutional research, financial compliance and more. It became increasingly clear that our technology was in demand at organizations with access to conversational data. A new vision began to form and we decided to double down on our technology and platform. And so we got back to work.
Our previous life had taught us a lot. In our new role, our child safety app would essentially become an example of what a customer might use our new service offerings for. It was actually Dave who pointed out that across most applications, more important than accurately identifying a specific issue like depression or anorexia — identifying a theoretical point of psychological distress would be most universally beneficial. The idea would be to assess for varying indicators that a person is undergoing distress, including indicators having to do with personality, emotion, and mood. Utilizing these models, we would then build profiles for each person, eventually predicting the event before it happens. And so, we set out to build a new individual based benchmark that could become an industry standard for psychological distress. This would be Visr’s rebirth — Visr 2.0.
In the months since, we’ve made significant progress. We continue to offer our app free to parents, and parents continue to sign up. Our R&D is now growing significantly. We’ve since partnered with top researchers at the University of Ottawa and have received some amazing and prestigious government funding from organizations like OCE and NSERC. I’d like to take a moment to thank them and all the people involved in those organizations. I think they often get overlooked — but government grants and funding are 100% a major contribution to Canada’s emergence as a technology leader. Canada really is positioned to be a tech superpower.
We are now in the process of rolling out pilots with a few of our initial commercial partners. As we perfect the platform we’ll then be opening it up to the public.
It’s worth noting here that our team, investors and board have been nothing short of remarkable. They supported us through all this, giving me guidance and feedback every step along the way. There is no doubt that we would not have made it to this point without each and every one of you.
As a company, we’ve had so many wonderful, difficult, and exciting experiences. I definitely feel humbled, but I also feel emboldened. It sometimes felt lonely, but more often I felt empowered by such an amazing team. While the future remains open, I must say on a personal level, the emotion I feel most is — proud. I’m proud that we continue to try so hard. And I’m proud that we always try to do the right thing.
And it’s on that note, that really underscores my confidence and excitement in Dave taking my place. He is super capable, considerate, full of integrity and also ingenious.
The journey is just beginning.
#forward
