Memory Lane
SoundMind Intelligence Inc. consists of Memory Lane and Connect-the-Dots and was founded in 2016 by Andy Kropa in Brooklyn, New York. Kropa, Founder and Creative Director, has a team which includes Erum Khan (CEO), Courtney Minich (COO), Dave Rubin (CTO), and Surinder Singh (Chief Strategist). The company’s founding was inspired by the passing of founder Andy Kropa’s mother due to Alzheimer’s. Kropa created a skill, called Memory Lane for Amazon’s artificial intelligence Alexa. This was intended to save the memories of people dealing with memory loss. Memory Lane allows users to easily elicit and playback moments from the past through Alexa.
Memory Lane utilizes Amazon’s Alexa suite to play back memories to users. For public memories, SoundMind independently researches and uploads historical facts to Memory Lane from the years through the present. SoundMind also wants customers to have their private memories on Memory Lane. Amazon’s current policy does not allow users to record content through Alexa, and SoundMind does not have the web function to upload personal memories for dissemination through the Memory Lane skill. SoundMind’s existing system is limited by the inability to record and edit personal memories.
SoundMind’s target market includes Baby Boomers with memory loss and 10 million Amazon Echo device users. Soundmind is the source for collecting and disseminating personal memories. The organization wants to keep the application user-friendly because of the age and technological skill level of the target market. The site will include upload capabilities for memories and backend access to the database. Our solution will be able to collect and store both personal and public memories via voice, text, and video. Berkshire Hathaway will conduct three interviews with Andy, Erum, Courtney, and Dave. The data collected will be used to investigate concepts for the collection and dissemination of personal memories and opportunities for SoundMind. We will focus our research on the needs of people with memory loss. Berkshire Hathaway will use Justinmind and create a prototype to present our solution, focusing on a web application.