February 16, 2025 • 19 mins
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.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hello and welcome to the Canberra Business Podcast
brought to you by the CanberraBusiness Chamber in association
with Care Super.
I'm Greg Harford from theChamber, and today I'm joined by
Zach Farag, the founder ofCyquility, a business which is
about to launch an innovativeand exciting product that could
be revolutionary in supportingneurodiverse people in their
work environments.
Now, obviously, not only isthis good news, potentially for
(00:31):
employers and neurodiversepeople, but also, of course,
it's an exciting businessopportunity.
So, zach, welcome to thepodcast.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Thanks so much, greg, it's an absolute pleasure to be
here.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Let's start with the basic question what is Cyquility
?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
let's start with the basic question what is psych
quality?
Absolutely so.
Psychility is an evidence-basedsoftware for neurodivergent
individuals to be usededucationally and professionally
.
The key value propositionswithin psychility are
essentially emotional regulation, followed by executive function
training and support, and thegeneration of psychological
reports through continued use ofthe software.
Essentially, how it works isthat a person using the software
would click their emotionalstate at that time.
(01:08):
They're then led through anindividualised intervention to
help them negate that negativeheadspace.
They then play their executivefunction game.
That will essentially have thateffect and then it moves
forward from there.
The software is designed reallyto be used in the background,
so it's designed to be usedduring an essay writing or any
of that sort of type of work soI'm writing an essay and I go
(01:30):
into the software and I say,well, I'm feeling gloomy or
stressed or whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And it will what?
Give me some suggestions as towhat I do?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
precisely so.
Say, for example uh, you wereto click um, you're feeling
frustrated or angry.
As a prime example, thesoftware will lead you through a
bodily awareness exercise,really working in an
anti-cartesian view ofpsychology, because you know, we
live in our bodies and ourminds are very much connected to
our bodies.
Once you've completed yourbodily awareness exercise,
you'll then be asked to reflecton a positive or happy memory
(02:00):
which will essentially bring youout of that negative headspace.
You'll then play your executivefunction game and then you'll
cycle back through, and then thesoftware will actually just
disappear from the screen,leaving you a Pomodoro-based
timer at the very, very top20-minute sessions, and you'll
continue to work that way.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
And the executive function game.
This is part of the software.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yes, absolutely so.
It's actually Tetris Well Ishould say technically a
Tetris-like game, I should say.
Beyond anything else, there'stwo reasons for that.
Tetris has actually been shownto train a person's executive
function.
Tetris has also been shown toreduce the occurrence of
intrusive memories and actuallyreduce the severity of PTSD
following a traumatic event.
So if you're ever in a severecar crash, for example, you'll
(02:42):
see someone do that.
Get them to play Tetrisstraight away.
If you're ever in a severe carcrash, for example, you'll see
someone do that.
Get them to play Tetrisstraight away.
Through the more sociologicallens that we've applied to the
software, we've kind ofrecognized that a neurodiverse
person living in a neurotypicalworld, we're fundamentally
forced to operate in systemsthat don't work for us and we're
consistently socially rejectedand told that we're not good
enough and that fundamentallycan be conceptualized as kind of
(03:03):
a microtrauma.
Which enough?
And that fundamentally can beconceptualized as kind of a
micro trauma, which are thesesmall everyday occurrences which
don't traumatize you at thetime but they culminate over
time.
So I believe in throughconnecting research with myself
and my consulting r&d lead,sarah, who's a published
researcher, we sort of believethat we can extrapolate that
finding to, um, helping sort oflike negate those negative
experiences more broadly, Reallyinteresting, and who would have
(03:24):
thought that Tetris was such apowerful beast?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
It's extraordinary.
Now, where are you at in yourjourney here?
You've developed the product,but you're not yet in market.
Are you doing some testing atthe moment?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, absolutely so.
We begin testing on the 28th ofFebruary.
If anybody is interested,please go to our website,
psychilitycom, to submit anexpression of interest.
So we've been working on thisfor 22 months now.
So we started around April 2023, and we spent the first eight
months really developing thepsychological rationale for the
(03:57):
software.
So we've got going on a7,000-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 youthat, moving forward from there
, we then went on board ourtechnical lead when we really
knew what we wanted to have inthe software.
Unfortunately, we lost fourmonths of development time.
We learned a hard lesson, whichis, if the red flags are there
(04:19):
from the very, very start, youhave 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 coupleof minor tweaks and shipping
that first version in threeweeks from now.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So you raise a really interesting point about colours
and fonts and general designparameters.
I guess how important is it toget those right?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Oh, it's massively important.
You know, especially aroundcolour theory and how it can
actually influence the nervoussystem.
So in Sweden, for example, inthe jail cells there the jail
cells are actually painted pinkbecause it does have a calming
effect on the nervous system andfor people who are in prison,
they typically have, they'retypically on the right-hand side
of distribution in terms ofaggression more broadly and
(05:02):
implementing that color theory.
So, for example, example, ifsomebody is feeling is feeling
anger or frustration, thesoftware will actually change
colors to try and bring thatperson 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 thanexpected, but it really is very
simple to to engage and that'skind of by design.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It sounds like it's enormously complicated in the
back end, and I guess that'swhere a lot of the complexity
comes from.
What differentiates thisproduct from others in the
market?
Is there anything else like it?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
For sure there are other people in this space and
for the people that are trulyevidence-based, we have nothing
but praises for what they'redoing Like an example is Endel
E-N-D-E-L.
They produce AI-drivensoundscapes within frequency
ranges.
For the things that areevidence-based, moving away from
the more sound-driven stuff,they're typically reading
(06:00):
modules, particularly for ADHD.
But this is actually where theconcept came from.
So I was second year of myundergrad and I was struggling
to get through the content.
I had the ability, but not theexecutive function, to be able
to engage with it.
I went to research things and Ifound there were reading
modules.
But of course, adhd is anexecutive function disorder and
reading is, by definition, anexecutive function.
So how am I, a person with ADHD, going to be able to buy the
(06:21):
software, read the software andthen implement the strategies
myself consistently?
And that really is the keydifferentiating factor between
psychility and everything elseout there.
We require no executivefunction engagement to be able
to benefit from the software.
It just leads you through withno thought at all and leads you
through that process.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
So what's the vision?
You're about to test theproduct and then you'll go to
market sometime later this yearJuly, july, yeah, so that's
quite a tight timeframe.
So that's pretty exciting.
And how will people um accessthe product?
Will they?
Will they just buy it on online, is that?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
the absolutely.
It'll just sort of be like yourkind 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 movingforward over the next couple
months when we start to get thatreal user feedback for the
first time excellent and who'swho's.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I mean, obviously you've got neurodiverse people
on your market, but is it justAustralia or are you aiming to
go global here?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I'll go global, for sure, for sure, you know.
You look at like the US, forexample.
Rather shocking stat, but onlybetween 8% to 10% of people
living with autism in the USwith college degrees are
currently employed.
Now that's.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
That's a staggering number staggering.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
You know the average employment rate across the board
the unemployment rate is sixpercent.
So you know we, like you know I, it sounds kind of a bit insane
, and I could be, but I sort ofthink that we're kind of almost
changing the way that psychologyis applied to people in a very
real sense.
So I think that globalaspirations always has to be.
Every founder has to have thatdelusion right oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Um, so is it?
It's only in english, or areyou looking at other languages
as well?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
then um, first version will be english.
Um, but then, like, as soon aswe can, we'll start to have
everything.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, that's very exciting, so uh, yeah.
So I mean just on that pointabout employment, I mean what,
what do you think are thebiggest barriers for
neurodiverse people in gettinghired?
And how can your softwareassist in breaking down those
barriers?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
For sure To answer this question.
I might take you on a bit of ajourney here.
So there's this concept inpsychology called a thin slice
judgment, which is essentiallyus making judgments on very tiny
pieces of information.
So and it makes sense, right?
You know?
Like, for example, if I'mwalking down the street and
there's a shirtless man with amachete dripping in blood, I'm
(08:44):
obviously going to be very waryof that person and want to get
away as soon as possible.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Hopefully that doesn't happen, often Fingers
crossed fingers crossed.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
However, there was this really interesting study
looking at thin slice judgmentswith people with autism in
social settings.
So the way that autism isconceptualized in our society is
very interesting.
It's like particularly aroundsocial difficulties more broadly
, it's generally seen that aperson with autism they have
social deficiencies is the termthat's used in that in that
(09:13):
social setting.
But of course socialinteractions are bi-directional,
right Like by definition.
Now, people with autism, whenthey are seen and just when they
speak they are seen as hostileand trustworthy and generally
they're just not liked verydeeply.
The interesting thing about theThin Slice Judgment Study,
(09:36):
which is just in nature, if youjust Google Thin Slice Study
Autism.
The interesting thing about thethin-slice judgment study,
which is just in nature, if youjust Google thin-slice study
autism the interesting thingabout that.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
So how do you think businesses can be more inclusive
in their hiring practices?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I think moving away from traditional social games
would be a very, very key one.
So if you look at people withautism, there's two key aspects
to it.
The first one is a lack oftheory of mind, or it can just
be, conceptualized as empathy,and the next one is a hyper
systemization of information, soessentially taking large
swathes of seemingly unrelatedtopics and be able to connect
(10:07):
them in very heterodox ways.
Now let's just take for anexample software development,
which is exactly that.
Now, if you want to havesomebody who is extremely
talented at software development, they're probably going to be
quite neurodiverse.
I work with coders and theytend to be very neurodiverse
themselves.
So sort of thinking, okay, ifthe key role in this space is to
(10:29):
, in this example, developsoftware, how necessary is it to
put people with autism throughthese 10, 12, 15 round interview
processes when the actual jobdoes not require that level of
soft skill in a very real sense?
Also, things like, you know,changing like kind of moving
from a verbal format to awritten format for those initial
(10:53):
sort of onboarding questionsand that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
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 interestinginsight that actually maybe
businesses don't need to bethinking about that for all
roles.
So tell us a little bit aboutyou and your background.
(11:21):
You're obviously on the path tosuccess now.
You've got an exciting techentrepreneur business going on.
But you've said that you've hada challenging childhood.
I think a teacher said you werethe most destructive child
they'd ever encountered.
In 40 years of teaching.
You ended up homeless as ateenager and now you're an
entrepreneur.
How did this come about?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
It's definitely been an interesting journey.
I haven't had the most typicalof upbringings we could say.
There's this Carl Jung quote.
I love Jung in psychology.
He says a tree's branchescannot reach to heaven unless
its roots reach down to hell.
So I moved out here when I wasnine years old from the UK,
(12:04):
spent a lot of time in Egypt asa kid as well on dad's side of
the family, went to school.
I think I had something like350 reports of my poor behavior
or something like that A lot ofviolence growing up for almost a
decade sort of thing a longtime and then ended up homeless
at 15.
I slept in the If anyone's everbeen to the Southern Highlands
the coals in the barrel there.
(12:25):
There was kind of like anunlocked maintenance hatch there
where I slept for God, going oneight months.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
It must have been horrible.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It was very cold, very, very cold.
Yes, I begged, boris stole myway for eight months, eventually
got into a youth refuge, wasthere for three months.
I found a job, worked minimumwage until I was 19 years old.
And then I remember justdistinctly it was middle of
summer, 40 degree day, workingon a commercial plant, nursery,
(12:54):
hard labor, black plastic and Ikind of thought to myself you
know, this is not where my lifeneeds to be going, sort of thing
.
I don't want to be like, youknow, working minimum wage.
So I went to TAFE, got my CertIV in community services, got my
uni entry, started atWollongong Uni where I met my
co-founder, tyler, and thenmoved to ANU to study more psych
(13:16):
and then started a businessfrom here.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
So that's a really inspirational story, and what
was it that really inspired youto break out of that sort of
minimum wage cycle and want toachieve more?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
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-smokingcigarettes and doing drugs and
everything, and I sort ofthought to myself my life really
can go down two paths here.
And I thought to myself do youknow what?
If you have enough resilienceto be able to figure it out at
(13:54):
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 thatI needed to to be able to
improve my life.
And here we are now.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Fantastic.
And that's a really, reallypositive story.
What is next for PsyQuality?
So testing, launching, and thenwhat?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Absolutely so we'll be launching mid-July From there
.
We need to hit certainfinancial metrics beyond
anything else, and then we'regoing straight to the US.
That's the next step forCyQuality.
So, finalise this funding round, move forward from there there
and then straight to the US, andyeah yeah, and what's the plan
around breaking into the USmarket?
(14:42):
we are going to figure it out aswe go along, as we've been
doing since day one, beyondanything else.
Really, it's kind of that's thebeauty of entrepreneurship,
right?
You know?
I remember, remember distinctly, just like being being in
various, various boardrooms andlegal officers just sat there
like in a suit, right, and methinking to myself I have no
idea what I'm doing here.
But you quickly realise thatnobody has any idea what they're
(15:02):
doing most of the time and youjust have to roll with it.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So yeah, yeah, and are you sort of leaning on
others?
Canberra is a reallycooperative and friendly
business environment.
Are you tapping into networksto get advice on those exporting
steps?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, absolutely so.
We're very, very lucky to bevery closely associated with the
Canberra Innovation Network,which is just an absolute asset
of all things.
We went through the 2023Griffin Accelerator, through
them, and I'm always popping inthere, probably once or twice
they're probably sick of me bynow Just to gain advice from
some of the extremelyexperienced entrepreneurs your
(15:39):
Peters, your Craig Davises andso on.
We're also working with whatWorks at the moment to help with
our front-end development.
But, yeah, just, you have tolean on entrepreneurs who have
made it in the game, becausethey've all been there before.
They understand the pain thatyou're going through, so they're
more than happy to give backand they will tell you if you're
(15:59):
annoying them too much beyondanything else.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Absolutely so.
What role have what Worksplayed in your journey?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Absolutely so what Works?
They have really been helpingus out very deeply with the
front-end side of things.
So, within software, there'sgenerally back-end expertise,
which is more data capture,which is more kind of
algorithmic stuff, and thenfront end is what you actually
interact with as a user.
We approached them I think itwas the 23rd of December, so two
(16:27):
days before Christmas and wesaid, guys, we have to get this
done by the 20th of February.
And they said, absolutely, wecan get this done for you.
So they've really taken on alot of the front end work.
It's allowed Alex, my CTO, toreally focus on embedding the
algorithm within the softwareand this sort of thing, but
they're just absolutelyfantastic.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And there's some really tight timelines.
We're recording this podcast inearly February, so that was
only what six weeks ago andyou're launching to test in just
a couple of weeks more.
So that's a big job, by thesounds of it.
Is it keeping you awake atnight?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Always, I don't think about anything else apart from
this company.
You have to have that level ofobsession to make this thing
work, because you don't knowwhat's in the pipeline in terms
of software.
And if someone is more obsessedwith what they're doing than
what you're doing, and they'reworking longer hours, they're
going to succeed and you won't.
That's the reality of business.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
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 theworkplace, or about inclusion,
or indeed the way software canhelp?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
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 bydefinition, and to put the
entire onus of like, to put theentire burden of a social
interaction onto a person thathas a condition that
(17:55):
fundamentally makes socialinteraction challenging, seems
almost wrong to me in a very,very deep way.
Try to work with a moreempathetic framework.
You know a person with autism.
They see the world in a very,very different way and there's
nothing wrong with allowingdifference into your life,
because some of the richestconnections can form through
(18:17):
that.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Excellent.
Well, zach Farag from Cyquility, thank you so much for joining
us here on the Canberra BusinessPodcast today.
It's been really interesting tohear about the software you're
developing, but also to hear alittle bit about your actually
quite inspirational journey overtime.
So thanks for being here.
It's been really great.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So thank you, Zach.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And just a reminder that this episode of the
Canberra Business Podcast hasbeen brought to you by the
Business Chamber and with thesupport of CareSuper, which is
an industry super fund, ofcourse, with competitive fees
and returns, exceptional serviceand a focus on real care.
You can learn more atcaresupercomau and don't forget
to follow us on your favoritepodcast platform for future
episodes of the CanberraBusiness Podcast.
We'll catch you next time.
Hello and welcome to the Canberra Business Podcast
brought to you by the CanberraBusiness Chamber in association
with Care Super.
I'm Greg Harford from theChamber, and today I'm joined by
Zach Farag, the founder ofCyquility, a business which is
about to launch an innovativeand exciting product that could
be revolutionary in supportingneurodiverse people in their
work environments.
Now, obviously, not only isthis good news, potentially for
(00:31):
employers and neurodiversepeople, but also, of course,
it's an exciting businessopportunity.
So, zach, welcome to thepodcast.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Thanks so much, greg, it's an absolute pleasure to be
here.
Speaker 1 (00:40):
Let's start with the basic question what is Cyquility
?
Speaker 2 (00:46):
let's start with the basic question what is psych
quality?
Absolutely so.
Psychility is an evidence-basedsoftware for neurodivergent
individuals to be usededucationally and professionally
.
The key value propositionswithin psychility are
essentially emotional regulation, followed by executive function
training and support, and thegeneration of psychological
reports through continued use ofthe software.
Essentially, how it works isthat a person using the software
would click their emotionalstate at that time.
(01:08):
They're then led through anindividualised intervention to
help them negate that negativeheadspace.
They then play their executivefunction game.
That will essentially have thateffect and then it moves
forward from there.
The software is designed reallyto be used in the background,
so it's designed to be usedduring an essay writing or any
of that sort of type of work soI'm writing an essay and I go
(01:30):
into the software and I say,well, I'm feeling gloomy or
stressed or whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
And it will what?
Give me some suggestions as towhat I do?
Speaker 2 (01:40):
precisely so.
Say, for example uh, you wereto click um, you're feeling
frustrated or angry.
As a prime example, thesoftware will lead you through a
bodily awareness exercise,really working in an
anti-cartesian view ofpsychology, because you know, we
live in our bodies and ourminds are very much connected to
our bodies.
Once you've completed yourbodily awareness exercise,
you'll then be asked to reflecton a positive or happy memory
(02:00):
which will essentially bring youout of that negative headspace.
You'll then play your executivefunction game and then you'll
cycle back through, and then thesoftware will actually just
disappear from the screen,leaving you a Pomodoro-based
timer at the very, very top20-minute sessions, and you'll
continue to work that way.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
And the executive function game.
This is part of the software.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Yes, absolutely so.
It's actually Tetris Well Ishould say technically a
Tetris-like game, I should say.
Beyond anything else, there'stwo reasons for that.
Tetris has actually been shownto train a person's executive
function.
Tetris has also been shown toreduce the occurrence of
intrusive memories and actuallyreduce the severity of PTSD
following a traumatic event.
So if you're ever in a severecar crash, for example, you'll
(02:42):
see someone do that.
Get them to play Tetrisstraight away.
If you're ever in a severe carcrash, for example, you'll see
someone do that.
Get them to play Tetrisstraight away.
Through the more sociologicallens that we've applied to the
software, we've kind ofrecognized that a neurodiverse
person living in a neurotypicalworld, we're fundamentally
forced to operate in systemsthat don't work for us and we're
consistently socially rejectedand told that we're not good
enough and that fundamentallycan be conceptualized as kind of
(03:03):
a microtrauma.
Which enough?
And that fundamentally can beconceptualized as kind of a
micro trauma, which are thesesmall everyday occurrences which
don't traumatize you at thetime but they culminate over
time.
So I believe in throughconnecting research with myself
and my consulting r&d lead,sarah, who's a published
researcher, we sort of believethat we can extrapolate that
finding to, um, helping sort oflike negate those negative
experiences more broadly, Reallyinteresting, and who would have
(03:24):
thought that Tetris was such apowerful beast?
Speaker 1 (03:26):
It's extraordinary.
Now, where are you at in yourjourney here?
You've developed the product,but you're not yet in market.
Are you doing some testing atthe moment?
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, absolutely so.
We begin testing on the 28th ofFebruary.
If anybody is interested,please go to our website,
psychilitycom, to submit anexpression of interest.
So we've been working on thisfor 22 months now.
So we started around April 2023, and we spent the first eight
months really developing thepsychological rationale for the
(03:57):
software.
So we've got going on a7,000-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 youthat, moving forward from there
, we then went on board ourtechnical lead when we really
knew what we wanted to have inthe software.
Unfortunately, we lost fourmonths of development time.
We learned a hard lesson, whichis, if the red flags are there
(04:19):
from the very, very start, youhave 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 coupleof minor tweaks and shipping
that first version in threeweeks from now.
Speaker 1 (04:31):
So you raise a really interesting point about colours
and fonts and general designparameters.
I guess how important is it toget those right?
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Oh, it's massively important.
You know, especially aroundcolour theory and how it can
actually influence the nervoussystem.
So in Sweden, for example, inthe jail cells there the jail
cells are actually painted pinkbecause it does have a calming
effect on the nervous system andfor people who are in prison,
they typically have, they'retypically on the right-hand side
of distribution in terms ofaggression more broadly and
(05:02):
implementing that color theory.
So, for example, example, ifsomebody is feeling is feeling
anger or frustration, thesoftware will actually change
colors to try and bring thatperson 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 thanexpected, but it really is very
simple to to engage and that'skind of by design.
Speaker 1 (05:25):
It sounds like it's enormously complicated in the
back end, and I guess that'swhere a lot of the complexity
comes from.
What differentiates thisproduct from others in the
market?
Is there anything else like it?
Speaker 2 (05:39):
For sure there are other people in this space and
for the people that are trulyevidence-based, we have nothing
but praises for what they'redoing Like an example is Endel
E-N-D-E-L.
They produce AI-drivensoundscapes within frequency
ranges.
For the things that areevidence-based, moving away from
the more sound-driven stuff,they're typically reading
(06:00):
modules, particularly for ADHD.
But this is actually where theconcept came from.
So I was second year of myundergrad and I was struggling
to get through the content.
I had the ability, but not theexecutive function, to be able
to engage with it.
I went to research things and Ifound there were reading
modules.
But of course, adhd is anexecutive function disorder and
reading is, by definition, anexecutive function.
So how am I, a person with ADHD, going to be able to buy the
(06:21):
software, read the software andthen implement the strategies
myself consistently?
And that really is the keydifferentiating factor between
psychility and everything elseout there.
We require no executivefunction engagement to be able
to benefit from the software.
It just leads you through withno thought at all and leads you
through that process.
Speaker 1 (06:41):
So what's the vision?
You're about to test theproduct and then you'll go to
market sometime later this yearJuly, july, yeah, so that's
quite a tight timeframe.
So that's pretty exciting.
And how will people um accessthe product?
Will they?
Will they just buy it on online, is that?
Speaker 2 (07:01):
the absolutely.
It'll just sort of be like yourkind 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 movingforward over the next couple
months when we start to get thatreal user feedback for the
first time excellent and who'swho's.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
I mean, obviously you've got neurodiverse people
on your market, but is it justAustralia or are you aiming to
go global here?
Speaker 2 (07:21):
I'll go global, for sure, for sure, you know.
You look at like the US, forexample.
Rather shocking stat, but onlybetween 8% to 10% of people
living with autism in the USwith college degrees are
currently employed.
Now that's.
Speaker 1 (07:36):
That's a staggering number staggering.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
You know the average employment rate across the board
the unemployment rate is sixpercent.
So you know we, like you know I, it sounds kind of a bit insane
, and I could be, but I sort ofthink that we're kind of almost
changing the way that psychologyis applied to people in a very
real sense.
So I think that globalaspirations always has to be.
Every founder has to have thatdelusion right oh, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
Um, so is it?
It's only in english, or areyou looking at other languages
as well?
Speaker 2 (08:04):
then um, first version will be english.
Um, but then, like, as soon aswe can, we'll start to have
everything.
Speaker 1 (08:09):
Yeah, that's very exciting, so uh, yeah.
So I mean just on that pointabout employment, I mean what,
what do you think are thebiggest barriers for
neurodiverse people in gettinghired?
And how can your softwareassist in breaking down those
barriers?
Speaker 2 (08:24):
For sure To answer this question.
I might take you on a bit of ajourney here.
So there's this concept inpsychology called a thin slice
judgment, which is essentiallyus making judgments on very tiny
pieces of information.
So and it makes sense, right?
You know?
Like, for example, if I'mwalking down the street and
there's a shirtless man with amachete dripping in blood, I'm
(08:44):
obviously going to be very waryof that person and want to get
away as soon as possible.
Speaker 1 (08:48):
Hopefully that doesn't happen, often Fingers
crossed fingers crossed.
Speaker 2 (08:52):
However, there was this really interesting study
looking at thin slice judgmentswith people with autism in
social settings.
So the way that autism isconceptualized in our society is
very interesting.
It's like particularly aroundsocial difficulties more broadly
, it's generally seen that aperson with autism they have
social deficiencies is the termthat's used in that in that
(09:13):
social setting.
But of course socialinteractions are bi-directional,
right Like by definition.
Now, people with autism, whenthey are seen and just when they
speak they are seen as hostileand trustworthy and generally
they're just not liked verydeeply.
The interesting thing about theThin Slice Judgment Study,
(09:36):
which is just in nature, if youjust Google Thin Slice Study
Autism.
The interesting thing about thethin-slice judgment study,
which is just in nature, if youjust Google thin-slice study
autism the interesting thingabout that.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
So how do you think businesses can be more inclusive
in their hiring practices?
Speaker 2 (09:46):
I think moving away from traditional social games
would be a very, very key one.
So if you look at people withautism, there's two key aspects
to it.
The first one is a lack oftheory of mind, or it can just
be, conceptualized as empathy,and the next one is a hyper
systemization of information, soessentially taking large
swathes of seemingly unrelatedtopics and be able to connect
(10:07):
them in very heterodox ways.
Now let's just take for anexample software development,
which is exactly that.
Now, if you want to havesomebody who is extremely
talented at software development, they're probably going to be
quite neurodiverse.
I work with coders and theytend to be very neurodiverse
themselves.
So sort of thinking, okay, ifthe key role in this space is to
(10:29):
, in this example, developsoftware, how necessary is it to
put people with autism throughthese 10, 12, 15 round interview
processes when the actual jobdoes not require that level of
soft skill in a very real sense?
Also, things like, you know,changing like kind of moving
from a verbal format to awritten format for those initial
(10:53):
sort of onboarding questionsand that sort of thing.
Speaker 1 (10:56):
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 interestinginsight that actually maybe
businesses don't need to bethinking about that for all
roles.
So tell us a little bit aboutyou and your background.
(11:21):
You're obviously on the path tosuccess now.
You've got an exciting techentrepreneur business going on.
But you've said that you've hada challenging childhood.
I think a teacher said you werethe most destructive child
they'd ever encountered.
In 40 years of teaching.
You ended up homeless as ateenager and now you're an
entrepreneur.
How did this come about?
Speaker 2 (11:42):
It's definitely been an interesting journey.
I haven't had the most typicalof upbringings we could say.
There's this Carl Jung quote.
I love Jung in psychology.
He says a tree's branchescannot reach to heaven unless
its roots reach down to hell.
So I moved out here when I wasnine years old from the UK,
(12:04):
spent a lot of time in Egypt asa kid as well on dad's side of
the family, went to school.
I think I had something like350 reports of my poor behavior
or something like that A lot ofviolence growing up for almost a
decade sort of thing a longtime and then ended up homeless
at 15.
I slept in the If anyone's everbeen to the Southern Highlands
the coals in the barrel there.
(12:25):
There was kind of like anunlocked maintenance hatch there
where I slept for God, going oneight months.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
It must have been horrible.
Speaker 2 (12:32):
It was very cold, very, very cold.
Yes, I begged, boris stole myway for eight months, eventually
got into a youth refuge, wasthere for three months.
I found a job, worked minimumwage until I was 19 years old.
And then I remember justdistinctly it was middle of
summer, 40 degree day, workingon a commercial plant, nursery,
(12:54):
hard labor, black plastic and Ikind of thought to myself you
know, this is not where my lifeneeds to be going, sort of thing
.
I don't want to be like, youknow, working minimum wage.
So I went to TAFE, got my CertIV in community services, got my
uni entry, started atWollongong Uni where I met my
co-founder, tyler, and thenmoved to ANU to study more psych
(13:16):
and then started a businessfrom here.
Speaker 1 (13:18):
So that's a really inspirational story, and what
was it that really inspired youto break out of that sort of
minimum wage cycle and want toachieve more?
Speaker 2 (13:31):
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-smokingcigarettes and doing drugs and
everything, and I sort ofthought to myself my life really
can go down two paths here.
And I thought to myself do youknow what?
If you have enough resilienceto be able to figure it out at
(13:54):
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 thatI needed to to be able to
improve my life.
And here we are now.
Speaker 1 (14:06):
Fantastic.
And that's a really, reallypositive story.
What is next for PsyQuality?
So testing, launching, and thenwhat?
Speaker 2 (14:19):
Absolutely so we'll be launching mid-July From there
.
We need to hit certainfinancial metrics beyond
anything else, and then we'regoing straight to the US.
That's the next step forCyQuality.
So, finalise this funding round, move forward from there there
and then straight to the US, andyeah yeah, and what's the plan
around breaking into the USmarket?
(14:42):
we are going to figure it out aswe go along, as we've been
doing since day one, beyondanything else.
Really, it's kind of that's thebeauty of entrepreneurship,
right?
You know?
I remember, remember distinctly, just like being being in
various, various boardrooms andlegal officers just sat there
like in a suit, right, and methinking to myself I have no
idea what I'm doing here.
But you quickly realise thatnobody has any idea what they're
(15:02):
doing most of the time and youjust have to roll with it.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
So yeah, yeah, and are you sort of leaning on
others?
Canberra is a reallycooperative and friendly
business environment.
Are you tapping into networksto get advice on those exporting
steps?
Speaker 2 (15:18):
Yeah, absolutely so.
We're very, very lucky to bevery closely associated with the
Canberra Innovation Network,which is just an absolute asset
of all things.
We went through the 2023Griffin Accelerator, through
them, and I'm always popping inthere, probably once or twice
they're probably sick of me bynow Just to gain advice from
some of the extremelyexperienced entrepreneurs your
(15:39):
Peters, your Craig Davises andso on.
We're also working with whatWorks at the moment to help with
our front-end development.
But, yeah, just, you have tolean on entrepreneurs who have
made it in the game, becausethey've all been there before.
They understand the pain thatyou're going through, so they're
more than happy to give backand they will tell you if you're
(15:59):
annoying them too much beyondanything else.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Absolutely so.
What role have what Worksplayed in your journey?
Speaker 2 (16:06):
Absolutely so what Works?
They have really been helpingus out very deeply with the
front-end side of things.
So, within software, there'sgenerally back-end expertise,
which is more data capture,which is more kind of
algorithmic stuff, and thenfront end is what you actually
interact with as a user.
We approached them I think itwas the 23rd of December, so two
(16:27):
days before Christmas and wesaid, guys, we have to get this
done by the 20th of February.
And they said, absolutely, wecan get this done for you.
So they've really taken on alot of the front end work.
It's allowed Alex, my CTO, toreally focus on embedding the
algorithm within the softwareand this sort of thing, but
they're just absolutelyfantastic.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
And there's some really tight timelines.
We're recording this podcast inearly February, so that was
only what six weeks ago andyou're launching to test in just
a couple of weeks more.
So that's a big job, by thesounds of it.
Is it keeping you awake atnight?
Speaker 2 (17:01):
Always, I don't think about anything else apart from
this company.
You have to have that level ofobsession to make this thing
work, because you don't knowwhat's in the pipeline in terms
of software.
And if someone is more obsessedwith what they're doing than
what you're doing, and they'reworking longer hours, they're
going to succeed and you won't.
That's the reality of business.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
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 theworkplace, or about inclusion,
or indeed the way software canhelp?
Speaker 2 (17:34):
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 bydefinition, and to put the
entire onus of like, to put theentire burden of a social
interaction onto a person thathas a condition that
(17:55):
fundamentally makes socialinteraction challenging, seems
almost wrong to me in a very,very deep way.
Try to work with a moreempathetic framework.
You know a person with autism.
They see the world in a very,very different way and there's
nothing wrong with allowingdifference into your life,
because some of the richestconnections can form through
(18:17):
that.
Speaker 1 (18:19):
Excellent.
Well, zach Farag from Cyquility, thank you so much for joining
us here on the Canberra BusinessPodcast today.
It's been really interesting tohear about the software you're
developing, but also to hear alittle bit about your actually
quite inspirational journey overtime.
So thanks for being here.
It's been really great.
It's been an absolute pleasure.
Thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (18:40):
So thank you, Zach.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
And just a reminder that this episode of the
Canberra Business Podcast hasbeen brought to you by the
Business Chamber and with thesupport of CareSuper, which is
an industry super fund, ofcourse, with competitive fees
and returns, exceptional serviceand a focus on real care.
You can learn more atcaresupercomau and don't forget
to follow us on your favoritepodcast platform for future
episodes of the CanberraBusiness Podcast.
We'll catch you next time.
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