Maryam NabaviGM, Koru · Venture GM at Koru and former startup founder

Babbly Success Story | Google for Startups Accelerator

Name: Babbly Success Story | Google for Startups Accelerator
Uploaded: 2022-07-12T13:00:04+00:00
Duration: 1 min 28 s
Channel: Maryam Nabavi
Description: In this first‑person success story, Mariam Nabavi, CEO and co‑founder of Babbily, recounts how her 18‑month‑old son’s delayed speech prompted her to seek…

12 Jul 2022 · 1 min

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1:28

In this first‑person success story, Mariam Nabavi, CEO and co‑founder of Babbily, recounts how her 18‑month‑old son’s delayed speech prompted her to seek help from a speech‑language pathologist. After six months of intervention, her son began forming short sentences, revealing a broader need among parents for tools that track early language development. Partnering with machine‑learning engineer Karla, they discovered that infant vocalizations are universally similar across cultures, forming the scientific basis for a technology that empowers parents with actionable insights. Their venture attracted Google’s inaugural Voice and AI Accelerator, which provided mentorship, objective setting, progress tracking, and a network of resources. With Google’s support, Babbily aims to become a pioneer in the space, giving parents data‑driven confidence to make early developmental decisions for their children.

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I'm a problem solver. My name is Mariam Nabavi and I'm the CEO and co founder of Babbily. When my son was 18 months old, he wasn't hitting his speech and language milestones. I was told to wait and see, but I was worried we were losing precious time. So I decided to get help from a speech and language pathologist. Within six months of Playbay's intervention, he was able to put short sentences together. I realized I'm not the only parent dealing with this issue. So I started to think about how technology can empower parents to know more about their child's development through friends. I met Karla, a machine learning engineer and scientist who shared my goal of wanting to do something impactful after the planning stage and talking to other parents. The insight we discovered was that babies speak the same language universally, regardless of culture or background. We started to look for support and found out Google was inviting voice companies to its inaugural Voice and AI accelerator. Google immediately recognized we were working on something unique. They told us that if you could crack this problem, you will be a pioneer in this space. Google helped us define our objectives, track our progress, and exposed us to a vast network of resources. We are so thankful for that little help from Google. We're now more confident than ever that we can help parents to make decisions for their child with the support of technology.