an article by Catherine Jewell, Communications Division, WIPO published in WIPO Magazine (December 2017)
It is often said that necessity is the mother of invention. This was the case for Daniela Galindo, a young social entrepreneur from Colombia.
Her younger sister, Julis, was born with a disability that does not allow her to speak, making it extremely difficult for her to communicate with her family and the wider world – a source of great frustration for both Julis and her family. Determined to find a way to communicate with her sister and improve her quality of life, Ms. Galindo developed a software application that now promises to transform the lives of millions who live with disabilities and for whom communication is a daily challenge.
The idea for the application emerged at a family dinner when Ms. Galindo and her parents were brainstorming about ways to better communicate with Julis. “We were in a restaurant sharing ideas and my Dad sketched out what is now our user interface on a napkin,” she explains. It took two years to turn the idea into reality. When Ms. Galindo graduated from her studies in computer science and business in 2011, she set up her company, Hablando con Julis, and set about developing the app. “We initially developed the solution for my sister to resolve a family issue,” she says. “The application changed my life. I found out who my sister is, what she wants, everything about her. It has also changed her life.”
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