- Ivan, tell us about your illness.

- I have cerebral palsy and bilateral cleft palate. This causes dysarthria - a speech disorder that makes me unable to pronounce consonants in the flow of speech. I chew them, so those around me have to guess what I wanted to say according to the vowels.

- Where did you study and who do you work now?

- Self-educated by life and self-occupied by the destruction of life. I engage in web activism, conveying meanings and ideas through online performances: a blog, an interview, a t-shirt store with provocative inscriptions, and so on.

One of the important thoughts that I bring: it is very important for a person to be able to speak out. This opportunity makes him a person.

Since I have programming skills, I made several applications that help non-speaking people write phrases for a speech synthesizer.

- What do your parents do?

- At the moment, his father is a development director at a medical firm. He is well versed in building a careful business and in institutional solutions that are not dependent on people. Mom is engaged in photography. By education, his father is a hydraulic engineer. Mom worked for many years as a translator. I have a good family. They gave me a lot of knowledge and cultivated in every possible way the desire for diversified development.

- You are developing an application that will allow people who are deprived of such an opportunity to communicate. What is its essence and how does it work?

- The main task of our programs is to allow the user to compose the text in a way convenient for him, so that later the text is voiced by a speech synthesizer. We invent a variety of convenient interfaces for this. I am developing a series of applications for people with speech impairments.

Applications are aimed at solving various motor problems that people with disabilities face. For example, “Linka.Click” allows the user to print with a single button. “Linka. Show” is aimed at people who are ready to communicate using pictures. “Linka. Paper Keyboard” imitates a keyboard with large buttons, it is convenient to use for people with impaired severity of moderate severity. I use the Linka.Write program, which transmits the text I have typed in voice if the Speech mode is running, or displays it on a laptop or phone screen. This is very true if I communicate with a person in private or in a noisy environment.

- How did you get the idea to make such an application?

- “Linka. Click” used to be called DisQwerty. This is a one-button alternatives selection system. When I was in ninth grade at the Dynamics school (I was 15-16 years old), a girl named Lina appeared there, she went to the second grade. Lina's features allowed her to control only the tilt of her head. On a general school uniform, I saw how they communicate with her using the scanning method. They asked her: “How much will 2 + 2?” - and showed a numeric keypad of nine cells.

First, the assistant moved her finger along the lines, Lina nodded at the second cell, then her finger drove along this line, and she nodded at the third cell. That is, she gave the answers first 2, then 3. In general, the girl was bad with math ... But I saw an interesting algorithm that I embodied in the code. Only instead of an assistant there was a button.

The algorithm itself recreated in five hours, it is elementary. Then we reworked the program a lot with the teacher Lina. So, for example, it was necessary to increase the font, because the children in this class had vision problems.

Two other programs appeared a bit later. I came to the realization that I want to make programs for non-speaking people, because I don’t speak myself, and I mastered the speech synthesizer API. So there appeared “Linka. Write” and “Linka. Click” (DisType and DisTalk at creation). The programs were renamed after the death of the girl Lina in memory of her.

I’m actively using Linka.Write. It has a very simple structure: a text input field and a “Say” button. "Linka. Show" is suitable for those who can not write, but can choose pictures from the table. For example, people with autism, aphasia, foreigners or illiterate people.

- Are there any analogues of these programs abroad? But in Russia?

- Each program has its own analogues, and they just mainly exist abroad. Some of them can “speak” Russian, but not all of them. The question is the cost and availability of these programs.

- Do you have sponsorship for development?

- The project has been developing with the money of private philanthropists since 2015. This summer I found a partner with extensive experience in product development. We plan to develop current Linka applications and launch a new product, maLinka, a prototype of which I recently shared with Facebook subscribers. This is a portable communicator for real-time communication, that is, we are developing a keyboard that allows users with various motor impairments to enter messages as quickly as possible. To create a pilot, we plan to organize crowdfunding in the amount of 300— 500 thousand rubles. Already with a ready pilot, we will begin to search for investors.

  • Ivan Bakaidov and Tatyana Demyanova - Linka developer and project manager

As I said, at the moment the project is developing with the money of private philanthropists, but now I have assembled a team that helps me find grants. I am a man of business, but not paper, so for this I need help. We hope to get more funding and develop a portable communicator for people without speech.

- At what stage is the work and when will the testing be? Or was it already tested? How many users? What are the reviews?

- Now all applications use about 600— 700 people. Applications at the stage of a working prototype.

Reviews about the programs are very different. For example, I know the story of a girl who was able to realize her dream and start working as a radio host after using Linka.

The programs, of course, still have a lot of ill-conceived and a sufficient number of errors. I would like to find a larger-scale industrial approach to their development.