Key2Enable Technology Empowers Learning While Encouraging Inclusion

By Richard Schreiber

Key2Enable is an American assistive EdTech startup conceptualized in Brazil, with a market presence in the United Kingdom, Chile, Portugal, Armenia, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Their technology empowers children with disabilities, parents, healthcare professionals, special education teachers, schools, and rehabilitation centers by providing innovative Assistive Technology (AT) and an educational platform to develop skills and individualities. Key2Enable enables people to use computers and mobile devices to communicate efficiently, learn, play games, work, and ultimately live with greater autonomy and be economically self-sustained in the future.

Based on assistive projects first developed in Brazil back in 2015, Key2Enable was founded with the goal of using exponential technologies to give autonomy and plenty of possibilities to people with motor and intellectual disabilities all around the world.

The company states that children with disabilities are one of the most marginalized groups in society, facing daily discrimination that bars them from enjoying their rights and participating on an equal basis with the rest of society. Lack of literacy, numeracy, and cognitive development combined with a lack of motor skills impact the future of exceptional needs children. They face multiple forms of discrimination that develop into exclusion from society, education, and present and future opportunities.

Key2Enable caters to people of determination who cannot use computers and mobile devices due to motion limitations or lack of fine motor coordination or who are nonverbal by providing innovative tools like the Key-X keyboard for accessing computers, learning, and communicating.

It has been observed that AT is not generally designed for classrooms and inclusive education; rather, it tends to be developed from an individual level to solve accessibility issues at a micro-angle. Sadly, most schools are not truly integrated according to Key2Enable’s inclusion standards. Special needs children are typically isolated in a classroom setting.

Furthermore, AT can be exceedingly expensive, within tens of thousands of dollars per child, making it difficult for the majority of schools—let alone families—to afford it. As a result, most of the 240 million children worldwide with exceptional needs are not receiving cost-effective support. Key2Enable is about to disrupt that reality with affordable, inclusive, and multi-user products designed to assist neurodivergent and neurotypical students using the products side by side and collaboratively.

The company has been active since 2009 and founded a subsidiary in the US last year. Its flagship is a Key-X keyboard with 11 big, colorful buttons. These buttons are placed a set distance apart and are sensitive to the touch. The sequence in which these buttons are pressed is equivalent to pressing a key on a regular keyboard, which enables people with disabilities to communicate more efficiently without accidentally touching unintended keys. For those who can only move their eyes, communication is made possible by a connection between the keyboard and a blink detector, Colibiri, which can be attached to any pair of glasses.

Key2Enable also offers its special education capabilities as a service via a subscription with a companion eLearning platform called Expressia, which gamifies and customizes learning. “Our revenue comes from direct sales plus monthly subscription plans after we first understand the user’s needs,” said Jose Rubinger Filho, the company’s founder. Key2Enable’s model is an affordable, proven product that has been tried and tested in hundreds of schools worldwide.

Expressia came from a need to close a huge gap in special needs learning. Key2Enable knew it had to close this gap to effectively teach special needs children. “We created Expressia when we saw the difficulties special educators were having trying to engage special needs kids with the current curriculum. Expressia can create its own sound, video, and tasks using characters kids could relate to,” says Rubinger. Key2Enable’s impact is especially felt with younger differently abled kids, who often start Kindergarten with little or no hours of literacy due to their unique challenges. For example, the typical neurotypical kid has 300 hours of literacy by age five. Key2Enable can neutralize that gap in a year with just two hours per day using its solutions, which is game-changing.

“There is no other product in the marketplace today that can offer this,” says Rubinger.

Key2Enable solutions offer autonomy, learning, and motion:

• The Key-X Smart Keyboard provides the ability to write and navigate any computer.

• Simplix software offers audiovisual activities for students and patients of any cognitive level.

• TelepatiX app for Android helps paralyzed individuals write and vocalize sentences.

• A-BlinX switch lets you do it all with the blink of an eye.

Key2Enable has won numerous startup awards and grants in the past decade, including most recently in 2023 as the Zero Project award winner for its Key X keyboard. In addition, they are recognized by the United Nations for their products and won the Haiku Prize in Beijing, China. In 2019, Key2Enable won the Best Innovation prize at the StartOut Brasil festival in Toronto, Canada. At the Entrepreneurship World Cup in 2020 in Riyadh, Key2Enable was awarded a place in the Best Growth category. The company continues to pile up awards as it seeks grants, funding, and opportunities to make its products available worldwide.

Beginning its operations in the USA with the Key-X Multi-purpose Smart Keyboard, the startup has already accomplished a remarkable achievement: in 2018, Key2Enable became a portfolio company of Singularity University, the world’s leading school of innovation and entrepreneurship. It is estimated Key2Enable is capable of reaching one billion people in the next ten years with its suite of accessibility solutions and applications designed for people with different abilities.

Key2Enable is now gearing up with strategic partners to deploy its solutions at schools worldwide, integrating its award-winning technology and devices with engaging learning content for special needs kids of all ages. They aim to equalize the skill, reading, and comprehension gaps in special needs children so they are on par with neurotypical children. Plans to incorporate virtual reality and other media are also in the mix.

The company seeks partners through school organizations or districts to implement its products on a trial run, knowing the results will undoubtedly exceed expectations and become a staple in the education process.

Richard Schreiber, co-founder of the NYC Autism Community Group and Autism Innovation Community Foundation, started as a technologist and software maven. He ended up deploying software solutions to some of the largest players in the world. He leveraged his technology background to create the recent NYC Autism Tech, Innovation, and Careers Expo in the Fall of 2022 to feature holistic, alternative, tech, and innovative autism solutions and speakers.