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Kinder Horizon Foundation · Lighthouse AAC

Communication is a human right, not a premium feature.

We build free, open-source tools that give non-speaking children a voice. Nothing to buy. Nothing to subscribe to. Nothing tracked.

DonateLearn about Lighthouse AAC
No trackingMIT + Apache 2.0Works offline
Watch

Lighthouse AAC,
the launch reel.

2:49

Music: "Wholesome" by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com), licensed under CC BY 4.0.

01 · The problem

Three barriers stand between a non-speaking child and their first word.

$200 to $400

Cost is a barrier.

Leading AAC apps cost $200 to $400. Many families cannot afford a child’s voice.

4 folders deep

Static interfaces overwhelm.

A child wanting ‘I am hungry’ navigates four nested folders. The moment passes. Frustration becomes meltdown.

Smart is not kind

Smart features make it worse.

Some apps move buttons. For a child who relies on muscle memory, a moving button is a silenced voice.

02 · Our approach

Augment, don’t rearrange.

When a child opens the app at home in the morning, ‘breakfast’ and ‘backpack’ subtly glow. At school during lunch, ‘hungry’ and ‘water’ surface instead. The full vocabulary is always there, always in the same place. The app illuminates the most likely path forward, never insists.

12:14 · Lunchtime · School
  • Glowing now: Hungry, Water, Help, Bathroom
  • 12:14 PM · weekday lunch hour
  • School (Wi-Fi based context)
  • Inference runs on-device. No data leaves the tablet.
03 · Reach

Built for the world, because autism has no borders.

A kid in a refugee camp with a donated tablet should be able to use this. A family in rural India with spotty internet should be able to use this. A parent anywhere with a $60 secondhand tablet who cannot afford a $300 app should be able to use this.

  • Offline-firstNo internet required.
  • LightweightRuns on low-end devices.
  • RTL-nativeArabic and Urdu from day one.
  • DistributedApp Store, F-Droid, APK, device-to-device.
  • Free foreverNo subscriptions, no ads.
04 · How the glow works

Four signals, one quiet decision.

Time of day

Morning vocabulary surfaces in the morning. Bedtime vocabulary at bedtime.

Location context

Home, school, the car. Each place has its own most-likely words.

Sequential history

‘Want’ is often followed by a noun. The app weights what usually comes next.

Recency

What the child just said matters more than what they said last week.

All learning happens locally on the device. No data leaves the family’s tablet.

Epistemic humility ·The model never insists. It illuminates. The child decides.

05 · Roadmap

MVP beta, Q4 2026.

  1. Month 0
    User research with families
  2. Month 1
    Static AAC board with RTL
  3. Month 2
    Context logging begins
  4. Month 3
    Predictive Glow activates
  5. Month 4
    Closed alpha with 3 to 5 families
  6. Month 5
    Public beta on all distribution channels
06 · Leadership

Built by parents. Verified by registry.

  • Dr. Seyed Mohammad Javadi
    President + Co-Founder

    PhD, Computer Science. Over 15 years building consumer software at scale, including engineering roles at Amazon, Apple, and Netflix. Father of a non-speaking 12-year-old daughter.

    seyed@kinderhorizon.org
  • Maryam Aliyar
    BCBA, Clinical Lead + Co-Founder

    Board Certified Behavior Analyst. Master’s in Applied Behavior Analysis and Master’s in Computer Science. Mother of a non-speaking 12-year-old daughter.

    maryam@kinderhorizon.org
Registered nonprofit

Kinder Horizon Foundation is a registered BC Society. Incorporation S0085100, Business Number 72195 3636 BC0001. Incorporated April 17, 2026.