High-tech ideas have higher goal
Dan Davies didn’t use venture capital to start his technology company, doesn’t rush its products to market and has no strategy to cash out.
But then, AbleLink Technologies Inc. is not a typical high-tech startup, and Davies, 46, is hardly the classic serial entrepreneur looking for his next big payday. The source of his motivation is intensely personal, so he doesn’t define success in dollars.
AbleLink employs 10 people in downtown Colorado Springs and is funded by $4.3 million in research grants. The company develops and sells specialty software, including a voice-based e-mail system and a Web browser that uses pictures and spoken information to navigate the Internet.
The company sells its products for $149-$2,000 through a catalog, on the Internet and by phone, as well as through other companies that market AbleLink gear. Some products also are sold to school districts and even to the Defense Department for brain-injured soldiers.
“Those with cognitive disabilities have been left behind by the technology revolution of the last 30 years,” Davies said. “I want to apply technology to real-world problems — to use the abilities and gifts God has given to benefit those with cognitive disabilities.”
That work resulted in a $50,000 prize given to Davies in November by the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, Calif. The award was one of 20 given for technology benefiting mankind, including a humanitarian award given to Microsoft Corp. Chairman Bill Gates.
“I have always though of Dan as the leading light for technology in this space,” said David Braddock, who nominated Davies for the award and is executive director of the Coleman Institute for Cognitive Disabilities at the University of Colorado at Boulder.
Davies draws his motivation from his late older brother, John Davies, who was born with severe cognitive disabilities, hearing impairment and couldn’t speak. John Davies lived at home until he was 10, when he moved to a special school. He died at 33.
“I saw a lot of potential to use technology to help people like my brother to live with a higher quality of life,” Davies said. “My one regret is that my brother will never benefit from the technologies that we create, but hopefully others like him will.”
Brian Brown, senior technologist at AbleLink, said Davies “invented this industry from a software perspective. A lot of larger companies look at the number of potential customers and don’t see enough, but Dan’s not in it for revenue; he wants to help people.”
Davies didn’t plan on a career as an unconventional technology entrepreneur. He was looking for new ways to allow cognitively disabled people such as his brother, who was institutionalized much of his life, to live more independently.
Davies earned two degrees in psychology, but his interest in technology also prompted him to take as many computer science courses as he could. He would learn to combine both interests in graduate school, studying industrial psychology and human factors engineering. “It was a way I could tie psychology with my interest in computers,” said Davies, who worked full time as a case manager at Cheyenne Village, a Springs-based nonprofit agency for developmentally disabled persons, while earning his master’s degree.
Needing a better-paying job after graduation to support a wife and child on the way, Davies got a job as a human factors scientist at CTA Inc. He spent seven years at the information-technology giant developing software for air traffic control terminals.
While at CTA, Davies said he wanted to combine technology and psychology “in a more focused way” and developed a few ideas for products. Davies joined with co-workers Randy Dipner and Bob Gattis to start a new firm, Meeting The Challenge Inc.
Although they started the company to create products for people with disabilities, Davies and Dipner won a contract in 1991 to become a clearinghouse in the six-state Rocky Mountain region for information on complying with the Americans with Disabilities Act.
“We won the contract before we even had a fax machine to receive the documents for the government to award the contract,” Davies said. The contract and related work became a major focus for the company, even as it received grants for technology products.
Davies realized he and his partners were headed in opposite directions — Meeting The Challenge focused on helping clients with physical disabilities, while Davies wanted to get additional grants to continue developing products for people with cognitive disabilities.
With his wife expecting their fifth child, Davies started AbleLink in 1997 to complete a grant that had about three months of work left on it.
“It was a leap. I had to see what I could do to stay alive,” Davies said. “It was like crossing a stream in fog, where you can only see the next rock to jump to. I stepped out on my own on faith, but I believed in what I was doing. There was plenty of angst, though.”
Steve Stock, vice president and a co-owner of AbleLink, said he and Davies used to meet in the parking lot of Garden of the Gods Park because the company had no office when it started. The company’s first office space, he said, was smaller than a closet.
“Fortunately, we had pretty good success right off the bat, but I miss the days when it was just Dan and I writing proposals and doing research,” Stock said. “I told Dan at the time that if it had ended in six months it still would have been worth it.”
AbleLink continued work started at Meeting The Challenge, which developed devices to help cognitively disabled people write checks and shop for food. Those products were adapted to work with personal digital assistants; a Web browser and e-mail software came later.
“We use mainstream technology so there is no stigma attached to using our products. We are a software company that helps this population to use high-tech equipment,” Davies said. “We spend a lot of time on field research with end users” to reach that goal.
AbleLink has won more small-business research grants from the U.S. Education Department — more than $3 million — than any company, Davies said. AbleLink’s sales have doubled annually for the past five years, and the company is profitable, he said.
“I harass him about running a nonprofit, but that is not really true anymore, though it isn’t far from the truth,” said Michael Wehmeyer, a University of Kansas special education professor who has worked with Davies on several research projects.
“A lot of firms in this industry have failed,” Wehmeyer said. “His company has become the most visible developer of software for this population.”
AbleLink’s 22-page product catalog now includes PDAs with software that enables cognitively disabled users to have books read to them, keep track of their schedules, use public transportation and make calls.
Michael Rogers, an Olympia, Wash., man with cognitive disabilities, uses AbleLink software for e-mailing friends and family and often tests new products for the company before they hit the market.
“With Dan it is not about your disability. He doesn’t dwell on what you can’t do, but on what you can do,” Rogers said. “He is a visionary in helping those who are disabled. He thinks of ways to make everyone stronger.”
The company is expanding its market to include soldiers and others with brain injuries and senior citizens with dementia and other cognitive problems. AbleLink also has formed a British subsidiary to sell its products in Europe.
“Our focus during our first 10 years has been on research, and about 80 percent of our revenue came from grants and 20 percent from product sales. As we expand, we expect to get to a 50-50 split in five years, given the number of products we have now,” Davies said.
Davies isn’t growing AbleLink to take it public or sell the company. He instead has committed $100,000 over the next five years to a new foundation, named for his brother and Stock’s uncle, who also had cognitive disabilities.
The Davis-Gauthier Foundation will use the money, the $50,000 Tech Museum prize and $1 million it hopes to raise to provide free and low-cost computer equipment and specialized software to special education programs and agencies providing services to people with cognitive disabilities.
“I didn’t create this company with a plan to sell it,” Davies said. “We haven’t accomplished what we set out to do. We have envisioned and developed innovative technology, but there is a lot left to do and a lot of people yet to benefit.”
CONTACT THE WRITER: 636-0234 or wayne.heilman@gazette.com
DAN DAVIES
Position: president/founder, AbleLink Technologies Inc.
Education: bachelor’s degree in psychology, Bethel College, Arden Hills, Mich.; master’s degree in clinical and applied experimental psychology, University of Colorado at Colorado Springs
Age: 46
Family: wife, Cindy; five children, Katie, 21; John, 19; Alex, 16; Cameron, 10; and Michael, 9
Previous jobs: vice president, Meeting The Challenge Inc.; senior human factors scientist, CTA Inc.; counselor and case manager, Cheyenne Village Inc. Professional and community involvement: chair, American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Special Interest Group; former Technology Task Force member for Cheyenne Village Inc. board of directors; former board of education member for Evangelical Christian Academy
Awards: Katherine M. Swanson Equality Award from the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, Calif., 2006; Technology and Media Leadership Award, Council for Exceptional Children, 2004
Hobbies: certified open-water diver; collects model trains
What you may not know: “I’m learning to play the electric guitar. I have a lot of respect for those who play an instrument. I never could.”
