.png)
The Canberra Business Podcast
A podcast about all things Canberra Business.
The Canberra Business Podcast
Enhancing Mental Health Through Game Design
We sit down with the innovative mind of Zak Farag, founder of Psyquility. His inventive tool is reshaping the landscape for neurodivergent individuals in both educational and professional settings. From personalized emotional regulation strategies to a unique Tetris-like game designed to boost executive functions, Zak shares how Psyquility is setting a new standard in mental health support. We also explore the vital role of design elements in enhancing user experience, and the journey of assembling the perfect team to bring this vision to life.
This episode is supported by CareSuper.
Hello and welcome to the Canberra Business Podcast brought to you by the Canberra Business Chamber in association with Care Super. I'm Greg Harford from the Chamber, and today I'm joined by Zach Farag, the founder of Cyquility, a business which is about to launch an innovative and exciting product that could be revolutionary in supporting neurodiverse people in their work environments. Now, obviously, not only is this good news, potentially for employers and neurodiverse people, but also, of course, it's an exciting business opportunity. So, zach, welcome to the podcast.
Speaker 2:Thanks so much, greg, it's an absolute pleasure to be here.
Speaker 1:Let's start with the basic question what is Cyquility?
Speaker 2:let's start with the basic question what is psych quality? Absolutely so. Psychility is an evidence-based software for neurodivergent individuals to be used educationally and professionally. The key value propositions within psychility are essentially emotional regulation, followed by executive function training and support, and the generation of psychological reports through continued use of the software. Essentially, how it works is that a person using the software would click their emotional state at that time. They're then led through an individualised intervention to help them negate that negative headspace. They then play their executive function game. That will essentially have that effect and then it moves forward from there. The software is designed really to be used in the background, so it's designed to be used during an essay writing or any of that sort of type of work so I'm writing an essay and I go into the software and I say, well, I'm feeling gloomy or stressed or whatever.
Speaker 1:And it will what? Give me some suggestions as to what I do?
Speaker 2:precisely so. Say, for example uh, you were to click um, you're feeling frustrated or angry. As a prime example, the software will lead you through a bodily awareness exercise, really working in an anti-cartesian view of psychology, because you know, we live in our bodies and our minds are very much connected to our bodies. Once you've completed your bodily awareness exercise, you'll then be asked to reflect on a positive or happy memory which will essentially bring you out of that negative headspace. You'll then play your executive function game and then you'll cycle back through, and then the software will actually just disappear from the screen, leaving you a Pomodoro-based timer at the very, very top 20-minute sessions, and you'll continue to work that way.
Speaker 1:And the executive function game. This is part of the software.
Speaker 2:Yes, absolutely so. It's actually Tetris Well I should say technically a Tetris-like game, I should say. Beyond anything else, there's two reasons for that. Tetris has actually been shown to train a person's executive function. Tetris has also been shown to reduce the occurrence of intrusive memories and actually reduce the severity of PTSD following a traumatic event. So if you're ever in a severe car crash, for example, you'll see someone do that. Get them to play Tetris straight away. If you're ever in a severe car crash, for example, you'll see someone do that. Get them to play Tetris straight away.
Speaker 2:Through the more sociological lens that we've applied to the software, we've kind of recognized that a neurodiverse person living in a neurotypical world, we're fundamentally forced to operate in systems that don't work for us and we're consistently socially rejected and told that we're not good enough and that fundamentally can be conceptualized as kind of a microtrauma. Which enough? And that fundamentally can be conceptualized as kind of a micro trauma, which are these small everyday occurrences which don't traumatize you at the time but they culminate over time. So I believe in through connecting research with myself and my consulting r&d lead, sarah, who's a published researcher, we sort of believe that we can extrapolate that finding to, um, helping sort of like negate those negative experiences more broadly, Really interesting, and who would have thought that Tetris was such a powerful beast?
Speaker 1:It's extraordinary. Now, where are you at in your journey here? You've developed the product, but you're not yet in market. Are you doing some testing at the moment?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. We begin testing on the 28th of February. If anybody is interested, please go to our website, psychilitycom, to submit an expression of interest. So we've been working on this for 22 months now. So we started around April 2023, and we spent the first eight months really developing the psychological rationale for the software. So we've got going on a 7,000-word white paper justifying every aspect of it, from colour to font to interventions. It was a labor of love. Towards the end, I can tell you that, moving forward from there, we then went on board our technical lead when we really knew what we wanted to have in the software. Unfortunately, we lost four months of development time. We learned a hard lesson, which is, if the red flags are there from the very, very start, you have to cut ties. But then we found our guy, alex, and we actually have the first version in-house right now. So we're just making a couple of minor tweaks and shipping that first version in three weeks from now.
Speaker 1:So you raise a really interesting point about colours and fonts and general design parameters. I guess how important is it to get those right?
Speaker 2:Oh, it's massively important. You know, especially around colour theory and how it can actually influence the nervous system. So in Sweden, for example, in the jail cells there the jail cells are actually painted pink because it does have a calming effect on the nervous system and for people who are in prison, they typically have, they're typically on the right-hand side of distribution in terms of aggression more broadly and implementing that color theory. So, for example, example, if somebody is feeling is feeling anger or frustration, the software will actually change colors to try and bring that person back down. That sort of thing. The entire software really, looking at design, it's very simple by design. The back end is very not simple. It took us a lot longer than expected, but it really is very simple to to engage and that's kind of by design.
Speaker 1:It sounds like it's enormously complicated in the back end, and I guess that's where a lot of the complexity comes from. What differentiates this product from others in the market? Is there anything else like it?
Speaker 2:For sure there are other people in this space and for the people that are truly evidence-based, we have nothing but praises for what they're doing Like an example is Endel E-N-D-E-L. They produce AI-driven soundscapes within frequency ranges. For the things that are evidence-based, moving away from the more sound-driven stuff, they're typically reading modules, particularly for ADHD. But this is actually where the concept came from.
Speaker 2:So I was second year of my undergrad and I was struggling to get through the content. I had the ability, but not the executive function, to be able to engage with it. I went to research things and I found there were reading modules. But of course, adhd is an executive function disorder and reading is, by definition, an executive function. So how am I, a person with ADHD, going to be able to buy the software, read the software and then implement the strategies myself consistently? And that really is the key differentiating factor between psychility and everything else out there. We require no executive function engagement to be able to benefit from the software. It just leads you through with no thought at all and leads you through that process.
Speaker 1:So what's the vision? You're about to test the product and then you'll go to market sometime later this year July, july, yeah, so that's quite a tight timeframe. So that's pretty exciting. And how will people um access the product? Will they? Will they just buy it on online, is that?
Speaker 2:the absolutely. It'll just sort of be like your kind of standard netflix subscription model sort of thing. Um, we'll have annual licenses, but this is really something that we have to play with moving forward over the next couple months when we start to get that real user feedback for the first time excellent and who's who's.
Speaker 1:I mean, obviously you've got neurodiverse people on your market, but is it just Australia or are you aiming to go global here?
Speaker 2:I'll go global, for sure, for sure, you know. You look at like the US, for example. Rather shocking stat, but only between 8% to 10% of people living with autism in the US with college degrees are currently employed. Now that's.
Speaker 1:That's a staggering number staggering.
Speaker 2:You know the average employment rate across the board the unemployment rate is six percent. So you know we, like you know I, it sounds kind of a bit insane, and I could be, but I sort of think that we're kind of almost changing the way that psychology is applied to people in a very real sense. So I think that global aspirations always has to be. Every founder has to have that delusion right oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1:Um, so is it? It's only in english, or are you looking at other languages as well?
Speaker 2:then um, first version will be english. Um, but then, like, as soon as we can, we'll start to have everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's very exciting, so uh, yeah. So I mean just on that point about employment, I mean what, what do you think are the biggest barriers for neurodiverse people in getting hired? And how can your software assist in breaking down those barriers?
Speaker 2:For sure To answer this question. I might take you on a bit of a journey here. So there's this concept in psychology called a thin slice judgment, which is essentially us making judgments on very tiny pieces of information. So and it makes sense, right? You know? Like, for example, if I'm walking down the street and there's a shirtless man with a machete dripping in blood, I'm obviously going to be very wary of that person and want to get away as soon as possible.
Speaker 1:Hopefully that doesn't happen, often Fingers crossed fingers crossed.
Speaker 2:However, there was this really interesting study looking at thin slice judgments with people with autism in social settings. So the way that autism is conceptualized in our society is very interesting. It's like particularly around social difficulties more broadly, it's generally seen that a person with autism they have social deficiencies is the term that's used in that in that social setting. But of course social interactions are bi-directional, right Like by definition. Now, people with autism, when they are seen and just when they speak they are seen as hostile and trustworthy and generally they're just not liked very deeply. The interesting thing about the Thin Slice Judgment Study, which is just in nature, if you just Google Thin Slice Study Autism. The interesting thing about the thin-slice judgment study, which is just in nature, if you just Google thin-slice study autism the interesting thing about that.
Speaker 1:So how do you think businesses can be more inclusive in their hiring practices?
Speaker 2:I think moving away from traditional social games would be a very, very key one. So if you look at people with autism, there's two key aspects to it.
Speaker 2:The first one is a lack of theory of mind, or it can just be, conceptualized as empathy, and the next one is a hyper systemization of information, so essentially taking large swathes of seemingly unrelated topics and be able to connect them in very heterodox ways. Now let's just take for an example software development, which is exactly that. Now, if you want to have somebody who is extremely talented at software development, they're probably going to be quite neurodiverse. I work with coders and they tend to be very neurodiverse themselves. So sort of thinking, okay, if the key role in this space is to, in this example, develop software, how necessary is it to put people with autism through these 10, 12, 15 round interview processes when the actual job does not require that level of soft skill in a very real sense?
Speaker 2:Also, things like, you know, changing like kind of moving from a verbal format to a written format for those initial sort of onboarding questions and that sort of thing.
Speaker 1:And obviously some jobs are more amenable than others for that sort of approach, because many roles do rely on front-facing people. But it's really interesting insight that actually maybe businesses don't need to be thinking about that for all roles. So tell us a little bit about you and your background. You're obviously on the path to success now. You've got an exciting tech entrepreneur business going on. But you've said that you've had a challenging childhood. I think a teacher said you were the most destructive child they'd ever encountered. In 40 years of teaching. You ended up homeless as a teenager and now you're an entrepreneur. How did this come about?
Speaker 2:It's definitely been an interesting journey. I haven't had the most typical of upbringings we could say. There's this Carl Jung quote. I love Jung in psychology. He says a tree's branches cannot reach to heaven unless its roots reach down to hell. So I moved out here when I was nine years old from the UK, spent a lot of time in Egypt as a kid as well on dad's side of the family, went to school. I think I had something like 350 reports of my poor behavior or something like that A lot of violence growing up for almost a decade sort of thing a long time and then ended up homeless at 15. I slept in the If anyone's ever been to the Southern Highlands the coals in the barrel there. There was kind of like an unlocked maintenance hatch there where I slept for God, going on eight months.
Speaker 1:It must have been horrible.
Speaker 2:It was very cold, very, very cold. Yes, I begged, boris stole my way for eight months, eventually got into a youth refuge, was there for three months. I found a job, worked minimum wage until I was 19 years old. And then I remember just distinctly it was middle of summer, 40 degree day, working on a commercial plant, nursery, hard labor, black plastic and I kind of thought to myself you know, this is not where my life needs to be going, sort of thing. I don't want to be like, you know, working minimum wage. So I went to TAFE, got my Cert IV in community services, got my uni entry, started at Wollongong Uni where I met my co-founder, tyler, and then moved to ANU to study more psych and then started a business from here.
Speaker 1:So that's a really inspirational story, and what was it that really inspired you to break out of that sort of minimum wage cycle and want to achieve more?
Speaker 2:I think it was just some of my co-workers beyond anything else, sort of the 40, 50-year-old blokes, alcoholics, just drinking and chain-smoking cigarettes and doing drugs and everything, and I sort of thought to myself my life really can go down two paths here. And I thought to myself do you know what? If you have enough resilience to be able to figure it out at 15 from sleeping in a car park, you can probably figure out the whole uni thing. So I sort of you know, recognised how systems work and then implemented the things that I needed to to be able to improve my life. And here we are now.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. And that's a really, really positive story. What is next for PsyQuality? So testing, launching, and then what?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so we'll be launching mid-July From there. We need to hit certain financial metrics beyond anything else, and then we're going straight to the US. That's the next step for CyQuality. So, finalise this funding round, move forward from there there and then straight to the US, and yeah yeah, and what's the plan around breaking into the US market?
Speaker 2:we are going to figure it out as we go along, as we've been doing since day one, beyond anything else. Really, it's kind of that's the beauty of entrepreneurship, right? You know? I remember, remember distinctly, just like being being in various, various boardrooms and legal officers just sat there like in a suit, right, and me thinking to myself I have no idea what I'm doing here. But you quickly realise that nobody has any idea what they're doing most of the time and you just have to roll with it.
Speaker 1:So yeah, yeah, and are you sort of leaning on others? Canberra is a really cooperative and friendly business environment. Are you tapping into networks to get advice on those exporting steps?
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. We're very, very lucky to be very closely associated with the Canberra Innovation Network, which is just an absolute asset of all things. We went through the 2023 Griffin Accelerator, through them, and I'm always popping in there, probably once or twice they're probably sick of me by now Just to gain advice from some of the extremely experienced entrepreneurs your Peters, your Craig Davises and so on. We're also working with what Works at the moment to help with our front-end development. But, yeah, just, you have to lean on entrepreneurs who have made it in the game, because they've all been there before. They understand the pain that you're going through, so they're more than happy to give back and they will tell you if you're annoying them too much beyond anything else.
Speaker 1:Absolutely so. What role have what Works played in your journey?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so what Works? They have really been helping us out very deeply with the front-end side of things. So, within software, there's generally back-end expertise, which is more data capture, which is more kind of algorithmic stuff, and then front end is what you actually interact with as a user. We approached them I think it was the 23rd of December, so two days before Christmas and we said, guys, we have to get this done by the 20th of February. And they said, absolutely, we can get this done for you. So they've really taken on a lot of the front end work. It's allowed Alex, my CTO, to really focus on embedding the algorithm within the software and this sort of thing, but they're just absolutely fantastic.
Speaker 1:And there's some really tight timelines. We're recording this podcast in early February, so that was only what six weeks ago and you're launching to test in just a couple of weeks more. So that's a big job, by the sounds of it. Is it keeping you awake at night?
Speaker 2:Always, I don't think about anything else apart from this company. You have to have that level of obsession to make this thing work, because you don't know what's in the pipeline in terms of software. And if someone is more obsessed with what they're doing than what you're doing, and they're working longer hours, they're going to succeed and you won't. That's the reality of business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, commitment is everything at the end of the day. What is one key message, zach, that you'd like our audience to take away about autism in the workplace, or about inclusion, or indeed the way software can help?
Speaker 2:I suppose in terms of inclusion, you know it's as I sort of said before. You know social interactions. They're bi-directional, like by definition, and to put the entire onus of like, to put the entire burden of a social interaction onto a person that has a condition that fundamentally makes social interaction challenging, seems almost wrong to me in a very, very deep way. Try to work with a more empathetic framework. You know a person with autism. They see the world in a very, very different way and there's nothing wrong with allowing difference into your life, because some of the richest connections can form through that.
Speaker 1:Excellent. Well, zach Farag from Cyquility, thank you so much for joining us here on the Canberra Business Podcast today. It's been really interesting to hear about the software you're developing, but also to hear a little bit about your actually quite inspirational journey over time. So thanks for being here. It's been really great. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2:So thank you, Zach.
Speaker 1:And just a reminder that this episode of the Canberra Business Podcast has been brought to you by the Business Chamber and with the support of CareSuper, which is an industry super fund, of course, with competitive fees and returns, exceptional service and a focus on real care. You can learn more at caresupercomau and don't forget to follow us on your favorite podcast platform for future episodes of the Canberra Business Podcast. We'll catch you next time.