WoW Woman in Health Tech I Maryam Nabavi, co-founder and CEO of Babbly

Maryam Nabavi is the co-founder and CEO of Babbly. Babbly is an AI-powered platform that gives parents data and recommendations to support a healthy development from 0-5 years. Their first solution is a mobile app that analyzes a child's speech and gives parents a personalized plan on how to promote their child's language and social skills. 

Maryam, tell us a bit about your background and your projects so far.

I’m the co-founder and CEO of Babbly, an AI-powered platform to help families get data and support on their child’s development. I was born in Iran and dreamed of going to space all of my childhood. My father is an entrepreneur and my mom is a designer. Growing up, I was exposed to many different things which made me appreciate the opportunity I’ve been given to build Babbly and to apply my past experiences to create something meaningful. I went to University in Canada to be trained as an Aerospace engineer and transitioned into product design through my studies in the UK. I am lucky to call Toronto home, where I live with my husband and my 6-yr old son. 

How did you get into this industry? Has it been an easy industry to get into or have you had many challenges?

I worked in technology most of my career as a strategist working with C-suites in Fortune 500 companies. However, family tech wasn’t something I imagined myself growing into. I came to this through my experience as a first-time Mom who found it really challenging to find clear answers to the questions I had early on. My son’s speech and language development were not developing the way standardized milestones are defined but it took me a year to get the resources we needed. This led me to think about how technology can give parents objective, real-time data so they can make the right decision for their children. 

How long did it take you to be where you are now? What was the biggest obstacle? What are the challenges of being in the industry you are in? 

Took us three years to get where we are for a number of reasons. One is the complexity of development itself. Unlike a child’s height and weight, there’s no universally accepted scale to measure development. This makes things really challenging as we’d have to build credibility with the parent and HCP community. The other is the technology itself. Not having access to large, labeled datasets for child’s language skills made it really difficult to build our models. We made a lot of mistakes early on and learned the only way we can build an accurate, reliable tool to assess a child’s language skills is by collecting and labeling the data ourselves and with the help of experts. This alone took about a year but we’re glad we did it as our technology is now ready to be scaled. 

What are your biggest achievements to date?

I think the two biggest achievements are the impact we’ve made on the lives of Babbly customers and our team. Through our evidence-based strategies, parents see improvement in their child’s speech and language development in 8 weeks. This is game-changing in a world where wait times to receive support can be months to a year. I believe Babbly will change how parents what parents expect from the healthcare system to be more continuous, data-driven, and responsive, and that’s a good thing.  

I am also proud of our team. Each one of them is best at what they do and they share the same passion which is to give families the support they deserve. 

What are the projects you are currently working on?

We’re testing a few different ways we can make the parents’ journey more personalized. There are lots of solutions out there that follow the same principles as the milestones checklists. This approach ignores the parent as the main stakeholder and assumes there’s one right way to address a child’s developmental challenges. We’re excited to combine the data we extract from a child’s voice in addition to other contextual and background data from the parent to give them a flexible, personalized plan that helps them achieve their goals. 

Is the #WomenInTech movement important to you and if yes, why? 

Women are the minority in the tech industry and like any minority group, it’s important to support each other and help nourish the community. I have seen first-hand how representation is important for the younger generation when they start to think about career paths. Having more women in technology and particularly in leadership positions can influence how girls choose their academic subjects and imagine themselves being successful by doing so. 

What will be the key trends in your industry in the next five years and where do you see them heading?

The industry is very fragmented today and I think we’ll see more consolidation between players to make family care more continuous and adaptable. There is so much opportunity to be unlocked in the 0-5yrs age which is the most critical time in a human’s life when it comes to speed of development and learning. 

What is the most important piece of advice you could give to anyone who wants to start a career in this industry?

Don’t let your identity pull you back when it comes to creating opportunities for yourself. We know there’re lots of challenges when it comes to dollars invested in female founders, pay equity, and women’s representation at the C-suite. But putting extra pressure on ourselves and shying away from opportunities because we think we have a small chance won’t help either. Know your worth and don’t waste time with those who don’t value it. You’ve got this!

Who are three inspirational women in your respective industry you admire?

There are too many to name but I’ve been lucky to come across a few that have inspired me: Heather Reisman (CEO of Indigo) is one of our early supporters at Babbly. She has a really inspiring career and genuinely cares about early development. I’d also say women who work in the tech industry and have been juggling family and work responsibilities are the heroes of our modern times. The last few years especially were detrimental to the working parent’s careers and Moms were disproportionately affected by it. Their resilience and empathy inspire me night and day!

Find out more about Babbly on their website.

Follow Babbly on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Twitter. 

 Connect with Maryam via LinkedIn.

This interview was conducted by Marija Butkovic, Digital Marketing and PR strategist, founder, and CEO of Women of Wearables. She regularly writes and speaks on topics of wearable tech, fashion tech, IoT, entrepreneurship, and diversity. Follow Marija on Twitter @MarijaButkovic and read her stories for Forbes here.