Talking Tipps Foundation
Dr Ellie Cole in conversation with Ms Gifty Ayoka, Founder and Executive Director
Tell me about the Talking Tipps Foundation
Talking Tipps started as an autism advocacy organisation because my son was diagnosed with autism at the age of three. We faced a lot of challenges and barriers trying to access education, trying to access the health system, and then generally trying to just let my child be a normal child. I didn't want other families to go through the same barriers that I faced. I decided to start an organisation to do advocacy because many people did not understand what disability is in general and what autism was.
After I qualified to be a speech therapist, I set up a speech therapy clinic to help other families access speech therapy in Ghana. In 2014 Ghana had only three speech therapists in the whole country. Over the last seven years, we've impacted over 10,000 lives, through awareness and have reached over 500 people with direct therapy.
When did you first hear about GDI Hub?
We first met Global Disability Innovation (GDI) Hub in 2023. At this time, we were only using traditional alternative and augmentative communication (AAC) devices, like those that use pictures and symbols to help people who are non-verbal or have limited communication to use as an alternative. Traditional AACs are great and help a lot of people, but someone’s own speech was always the preferred mode of communication. GDI Hub wanted to pilot an application that could help persons with atypical speech, and they introduced us to the Relate app, which is a free Android app, which was actually launched in Ghana.
What has been your involvement with the AT2030 programme?
Talking Tipps has been involved several projects in the AT2030 programme. GDI Hub wanted to pilot the Google Relate program. We piloted it with 20 people with non-standard speech, and it was successful, apart from language and access to internet were sometimes barriers, but it did impact a lot of lives. The feedback we got was great because it didn't require that people change their pattern of speech or the way they spoke for the application to understand them – people said it was like a ‘magic pill’.
At the time, the Relate program was only available in English, so GDI Hub wanted to collect data on local languages. The Tɛkyerɛma Pa (good tongue) project built a database of atypical speech in Akan, Ewe, Ikposo, Dagbani, and Dagaare. Talking Tipps recruited the participants, but we also helped get people with atypical speech to be part of the research team to make sure that it was fully inclusive. We also mentored the team on how to work with people with speech impairments. Our organisation also helped deliver a hackathon, where teams designed communication apps using the language databases. All the teams included a person with atypical speech.
There’s another smartphone app called ‘Look to Speak’ that helps persons with severe mobility issues who can't communicate with any parts of their body apart from the eyes. It was another groundbreaking application that I was introduced to, by GDI Hub through its work on ‘mobile as AT’, and I thought ‘wow what else is out there we could be recommending to our clients?’
We had never done anything with AI until we started collaborating with GDI Hub. And now I realise that a lot of AI powered disability apps are coming up, which is something that I'd never thought I would be finding out about. But now, because of my experience with GDI Hub, it has made me stay updated on these things so that I can help other families.
Most recently we have been working on an AT2030 project about what ‘lifechanging AT’ means for AT users in Ghana. We have been collaborating with researchers from GDI Hub and the University of Ghana. Just last month we completed data collection in Accra and Ho, where we talked to AT users and their caregivers to understand what has been the ‘most significant change’ they had since getting their AT.
Why is the work important?
I always say that if anybody needs AT, it's Africa. We need AT more in Africa because we don't have enough trained AT practitioners. So, all these AI-powered apps can bridge the gap and help our population whilst we try to expand our workforce. This is why we've been trying to just do all kinds of AT, because we realise that AT is important for everybody. And people must know what is out there. For communication, there are lots of free apps. For visual, there are lots of free apps. But a lot of the time people don’t know about them. That that has been the power of collaboration – without it we would have been left behind.
What this has also done for me as an individual is that I get a lot of speaking engagements around AT. Because when they when they saw the papers on the ‘gaze-based communication’ and on the one on communication on the Project Relate app, people thought ‘oh, wow, then this person knows something about AI powered platforms and AI powered communication’. I always tell them that I'm not an AI expert but I am a disability expert and I can point you to what is available.
It was the AT2030 programme that showed us the way. When we piloted the Project Relate app, we realised that the application was there, it was good, but then there were language barriers. Because AT2030 tests ‘what works’, and with which population, addressing these barriers has been the force behind the CDLI [Centre for Digital Language Inclusion, co-funded by AT2030], because they realise that Africa has so many, many languages and these people are the ones that actually need some of these AI powered platforms the most because we lack AT practitioners. So yes, the work with AT2030 keeps getting and better.
Has your work with AT2030 increased the visibility of AT in Ghana?
Oh yes, we even had the Ministry of Education calling us, the former government before this new government. They wanted to start with 100 mobile devices for students with speech impairments. Unfortunately, it didn't happen because they didn't win the elections, so we’re back to the talking stage. But it's just been amazing. It's just been amazing how this has opened the gates or even the floodgates for government to begin to look at this AT in a new way. So yes, it has impacted a lot of people, changed people's lives in a way that I never even thought possible.
Just last week I spoke to an MPhil class at the University of Ghana about AI-powered assistive technology and I ended up sending the papers that we've done with GDI Hub to the class. When I lectured to the class, did they think mobile phone could be someone's assistive technology? No, they had never thought about it. When I brought their minds to it, I asked, so now that you know a mobile phone can be someone's AT, what do you think we can do with governments? And then the ideas started coming and coming. Imagine when they graduate, what is going to be the ripple effect?
What have been the most important things you have learned through working on the AT2030 project?
Knowing that AT works, but AT works differently for different people. You should always want to know how it works for each individual. Because finding out ‘what works’ is what AT2030 sits on. That has given me a new perspective: Yes, the wheelchair is good, but does it work for this community? What is the terrain like? Can you recommend it without asking these questions, you know? So I think that has changed my mindset. Yes, AT works, AT is good, but for each person who comes to you, you need to know where they are coming from, their context.
If there's anything that I can say is that it's a must for us to continue to collaborate across the world when it comes to disability. It is only through collaboration that we can truly make an impact and everyone can be pulled along and no one will be left behind. It's through collaboration. Because without our collaboration with GDI Hub and AT2030, we wouldn’t be talking about AI-powered AT. It would have probably taken years to get there. And here I am now doing a lot of awareness, talking to governments, talking to churches, you know, and it has just been great.
What’s next for Talking Tipps?
We are trying to find a good space at the centre for people to just come in and try some of these apps, especially for people who don't have a smartphone. We don't expect that when we say this app works, you should just go out and buy a phone. You want to try whether it works for you. Because it might work for one person, it might not work for you. So we want to establish an experience hub where people can come in and experience these AI-powered apps, and we tell them what is possible and what is not possible. Over time we intend to add more assistive technologies. This idea would never have come up without the collaborations Talking Tipps has had with GDI Hub and AT2030.
Any final thoughts?
I will always emphasise the power of ‘global North’-‘global South’ collaboration. And that it should be documented. What the ‘global North’ can do for the ‘global South’, I'm not talking about just financial, I'm just talking about knowledge-sharing. Because apart from the research that we've done with GDI Hub, a large part of the collaboration is that they also shared knowledge with my organisation. It's the knowledge-sharing that has changed the lives of people.
Organisations like GDI Hub and the AT2030 programme is a powerful way of reminding us how AT works differently for different people in different parts of the world. Yes, and for each, I always say, let's document it.