In this episode of the NeuroSec podcast, host Nathan Chung speaks with Kathy Long, CEO of Nixit AI, about the intersection of artificial intelligence and neurodiversity. Kathy shares her personal journey as a neurodivergent individual and a mother of neurodivergent children, highlighting the challenges faced by this community. Nixit AI aims to create tools that empower neurodivergent individuals by focusing on their strengths rather than deficits. The conversation delves into the ethical considerations of AI, the importance of user autonomy, and the need for supportive environments in education and parenting. Kathy emphasizes the significance of building technology with neurodivergent users and offers practical advice for both individuals and educators.

Okay.

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Hi everyone.

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Welcome to the NeuroSec podcast.

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I'm your host, Nathan Chung.

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And today we're talking about something close to my heart.

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AI built for neurodivergent people.

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A year ago, I spoke at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas and there I explored how

AI is opening doors for the neuro diversity and disability communities.

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And that message matters now more than ever.

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Even though the headlines in the news is often focused on fear, job loss, harm, misuse,

the truth is that AI can be a force for inclusion, independence, empowerment, and

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ultimately it can help people.

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That's why I'm so excited for today, by today's special guest, Cathy Long, CEO of Nixit

AI, a company working to build exactly that kind of positive human centered technology.

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Cathy, welcome to the show.

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Well, thank you for having me, Nathan.

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It's a pleasure to be here and I'm excited to talk about Nixit, but more importantly, talk

about how important AI is going to be in this community of the neurodivergent people.

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Totally, totally so before we dive in, Kathy, I'd love for the listeners to get to know

you.

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Could you introduce yourself and share a bit about your background and what led you to

build Nixit AI

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Yeah, I am a 30 year veteran in the revenue operations space.

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I've held positions of leadership and sales and operations and now I'm a CEO.

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So I'm managing all of the things that I need to manage.

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And then how I really got into this is that I've spent my whole career building systems

and processes.

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That's my jam.

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It's where I get to nerd out sometimes.

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And I'm also neurodivergent myself.

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I have ADHD, late diagnosed, and I got diagnosed, and a lot of other moms are gonna,

this'll resonate with them, I was diagnosed after my children were diagnosed, and I went,

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hey, wait a minute, that's me.

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That's part of me.

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So I have four neurodivergent, beautiful children who are all different flavors of, and

textures and flowers.

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And I watched all of my children go through the process of schools and systems and things

that weren't working for them.

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and they were getting chewed up by some of these support systems, but inevitably we found

systems that helped them thrive.

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And so a lot of times what really drove me is thinking about that cliff that high

schoolers, once you finish high school and you graduate and now you enter adulthood, we

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talk about that cliff in the autistic community.

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And that's something that my own son experienced.

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And 1.8 million, the statistic kills me, 1.8 million kids graduate from the system every

year.

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and they're left helpless without support, without resources, and parents don't know how

to help them.

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And so I'm excited to pull Nixit into this space and to see what I can do to help this

community.

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That is amazing.

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And so you're building Nixit as AI that actually works for neurodivergent brains.

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What is the core problem you're trying to solve at that mainstream productivity and

coaching tools and apps just don't get it.

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Yeah, I think one of the things that we noticed going through all this is what would help

Jack.

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And I'm going to say that over and over in this podcast, I'm sure.

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What helps Jack?

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Jack is my 25 year old son.

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And when he was born, he was, he had a lot of issues at birth and the nurse sat me down

and said, oh, he's going to go through some things.

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You're going to, you know, delays in speech.

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He's going to have delays in walking and all in all, Jack's fine.

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And a lot of what I started recognizing was the core system and the core platform.

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The messaging behind that is your kid's broken.

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Here's how we're going to fix it.

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Your kid's broken.

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Here's how we're going to mask them.

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Your kid's broken.

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And it's painful.

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Like it starts to make you feel shame.

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Those mainstream productivity elements, they're all about shame and they're all about

fixing and they're all about tracking deficits and not tracking thriving.

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And they don't feed off of productivity.

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They feed off of anxiety.

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And so that's the one thing we want to, use to approach this.

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We don't want to track what you didn't do.

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We want to track and celebrate what you do do.

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Neurodivergent brains, they work in a very specific and special way.

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And we need systems that reduce that cognitive load.

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And that's one of our number one precepts is cognitive load distribution.

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Anything we can do to improve the UI so that it's easy to use, it's frictionless.

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And with AI, it's possible.

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It used to not be possible and now it is possible.

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using everything from an AI first standpoint, we're able to make sure that we're not

punishing a kid for having bad executive functioning, but we are celebrating the kid for

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who they are.

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And so we're very excited about that is to be very different from the paradigm of fixing

broken brains.

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Well said.

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So, at looking at your background, how did your background in client success and

enterprise account management shape your understanding of what neurodivergent

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professionals are up against in corporate metrics and expectations?

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Yeah, what I find funny when I look back at my career is how many times I have found a

position to break the system, to improve processes, to hack it.

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And again, that's how my ADHD brain works.

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My ADHD brain wanted to find a way to take away the pain, to take away the shame, to take

away the friction of my own life.

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A few years ago, I was working for a company.

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And in that company, we had changed the commission structure five times.

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That wasn't on me.

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I would never do that to anybody.

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And I had to work with each of the employees with, okay, now this is how you hack the

system.

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This is how you improve your numbers.

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This is how you get ahead.

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And each time it sharpened me and how I could describe it to the employees to be able to

better and more efficiently help them in the system.

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And so one of the ways I look at that is, you know, revenue ops is all about metrics.

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It's all about conversion rates, all about numbers.

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If you just do A and insert into slot B, you're going to figure this out.

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And I think for me, it was hard to see decades of watching talented people just get

crushed by the system.

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The systems that measure the wrong things.

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You know, instead of saying, you you have to bring in $10,000 this month.

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I think the great, the better thing is, you know, how have you helped our customers?

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What have you done to improve the metrics that way?

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Do you love your job every day?

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Do you get up every day excited to come to work?

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I think those are the things we need to measure more than, you know, did you bring in

10,000 because you're going to be met with shame and you're going to be met with less

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productivity and people who just are performing to be there.

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ah So again, back to revenue ops, but I'm, I love being a part of that system.

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I enjoy revenue ops because of the numbers, but I think it's.

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I think it's imperative for all of us to find a way to make sure that the numbers measure

what really matters.

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Well said.

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That brings us to how you design Nixit.

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So many executive function apps today quietly assume that the user is the problem.

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How did you design Nixit so that the system adapts to the human and not the other way

around?

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Yeah, I think when I first came up with this idea, it was two years ago and my son was

going through a hard time and there was a doctor's appointment that day and I was working,

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I was in a meeting and I couldn't get out of the meeting and he was supposed to be at the

doctor's on a normal, normal well visit and a couple things happened and there were a lot

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of questions and he froze.

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He didn't know what to do.

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Next thing you know, he's texting me, he's blowing up my phone.

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I felt horrible.

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How could I be in two places at once?

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And that was the one thing that really frustrated me as a parent he's gonna keep having

issues and he's gonna keep having problems because he has nobody to talk to or to ask

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these very simple questions about.

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And nobody can really talk to him in a way that's gentle, kind and endearing for him to

really understand because he starts shutting down at a certain point if he stops, um if

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he's unable to understand what you're trying to say.

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So for me, um I started to think about a few things, which is consent.

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He's 25.

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He doesn't need mommy to babysit him.

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What he needs is just somebody to help him through some difficult things.

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For us, autonomy is sacred.

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That's everything to me.

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And I think it's probably going to piss some parents off because while it's going to be an

app that a parent can help with,

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It's not about surveillance.

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It's not about quelling mom's anxiety.

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It's about, you know, helping Jack and autonomy is sacred and consent is everything.

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And our architectural framework is all about consent.

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The user is always in control.

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And I think the neurodivergent community deserves trust.

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This is a space that has been pillaged from trust and we need to put trust back into the

system.

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And the kids need something that feels trustworthy to use.

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And so that's one of the things that we want to focus on.

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We also, don't track deficits.

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There's literally nothing in the system that would ever track that.

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And we don't measure compliance.

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We are not looking for maskers.

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We are not looking for you to, you know, have you been a good capitalist today?

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We don't care.

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We just want you to thrive and to be happy and to be fruitful and to be thriving.

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So we do, we measure thriving and...

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Some of the measurements are a little intangible and maybe hard to get, but we are going

to do our best to get there.

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And I think the cool thing about AI is that it learns your patterns and it adapts to you,

not the other way around.

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So if you're having what we call a low spoon day, the system's going to adjust and it's

going to adjust with where you're at.

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And it's going to let you know that you can take off.

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You don't have to do those 20 things.

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I don't know about you, Nathan, but.

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I sometimes will write a list of what I want to do that day.

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And I go into Claude and I'll say, okay, how am I going do all these things?

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And even Claude says, no, you're not doing it.

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You're way too ambitious today.

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And that's where we want to be.

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We want to help the user be more proactive, not reactive.

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And we want to reach out to them before they spiral.

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And we want to make sure that the app can be there in advance before they actually need

help, because asking for help is also really hard.

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And for the user, it's always going to be free.

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because we believe that crisis support or the crisis support level that no one should have

to pay to fall apart.

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Yep.

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That's pretty awesome.

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I really like how you focus on the strengths because in our society, it's opposite of

what's broken with you.

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Why can't you do X, Y, It's depressing.

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So I praise you for taking a strengths based approach.

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So next question is, can, like, tell me more about how it works.

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How can Nixit help neurodivergent people like me?

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Oh, well, I think that the one thing that we do best is when we build with neurodivergent

people, we build with them.

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So we have 15 testers in our current prototype and those 15 testers are all neurodivergent

and they're a variety of neurodivergent.

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I'm neurodivergent, my husband's neurodivergent, my VP of creatives neurodivergent,

everybody who works on the product, that's all we think about.

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We are obsessed with making sure that we really understand the journey of the

neurodivergent.

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I don't think my kids would let me build anything that forced somebody to be neurotypical

or to put people into the paradigm.

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So we work with them.

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We don't work at them or for them.

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We work about them.

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So we are about the product.

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Our beta users, not only are they neurodivergent, but a lot of them are incredible

enthusiasts to what we're doing.

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So that's made it super fun.

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And we get to hear stories of our users.

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And that helps to embed some of the framework that we use into our application.

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We've talked to psychologists, psychiatrists.

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We've pulled them into helping us crib some of the framework to make sure that it's

neuroaffirming as possible.

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And then if something ever feels condescending or shame inducing, we kill it.

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It will not ship if it feels shameful.

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And sometimes that's even hard.

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I think one of the features we were looking at was streaks.

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Streaks, everybody loves streaks.

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How do you improve behavior modification

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you get somebody to want to do something.

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Well, my VP of creative, Justin Fern, who's incredible, he was telling me, said, yeah, no,

I don't think we can do streaks.

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He's like, streaks, people start getting stressed that they now lost their streak.

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And even if you say, okay, now you can buy back a streak, right?

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You can, we'll let you circumvent the system because we really just want you to use this.

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What he's also worried about is dopamine.

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We don't want you to only be driven by dopamine.

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And we actually talked to an occupational therapist about this, how do we intrinsically

and instinctually get somebody to want to keep using this?

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Like what would be the faithful usage to get them to improve their life?

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And she said that it comes from within, that she doesn't give treats or toys or tricks.

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There's nothing about it.

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They have to start wanting it.

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So you have to have them want it.

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But again, you don't want to give in to the system of dopamine inducement.

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Because that's so temporary.

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Dopamine runs out.

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And eventually you're not going to be using the application that you should be using.

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So how we're doing that is we're supporting people where they're at.

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We are using the team.

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We are talking to experts.

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And we're making sure that we just help our users with the best way that we know how to

help them.

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So I think what lot of listeners who are especially who are neurodivergent like me would

like to know is what are the top use cases?

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Like how can it help me every day?

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what, how does, what are the top functions to break it down?

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Can you explain simply like the main functions?

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Like how it can help me each day?

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Yeah, so this goes into the pitch, right?

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So part of the pitch, it's really helpful to think of, I want a mom in the pocket.

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When I think of Jack sitting at the doctor's office without any help, wouldn't it be great

if instead of texting mom, he texts Nixit?

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And Nixit says, hey, let's walk you through this.

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What is the question that you're trying to answer?

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Oh, you have to go get blood work somewhere else?

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No worries, that's not a big deal.

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There's a ask, you this is where the closest blood testing center is and it's literally

across the street from you.

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So you could just walk across the street.

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It's easy to do.

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I'll walk you through it.

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When you get to that building, let me know you're done and we'll get to give you the next

step.

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So we try to feed the steps of the task breakdown to the individual.

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So it feels doable and achievable.

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There's another use case where there was a kid being bullied at a bus stop and that story

um ended a bit tragically.

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And, it is the use case that we think about.

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So I cared for a 12 year old boy years ago who had attempted suicide with his dad's

shotgun after being bullied at a bus stop.

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And in the hospital, I found out that he had ADHD.

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It was spontaneous.

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He had nobody to talk to and he was feeling trapped.

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And so that's not that that's an everyday use case and not that we have, we have a mental

health app, but what we want to do is to be there as the bridge between you and that next

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moment.

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And we're not there to interrupt the child parent relationship or get involved in any way.

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But that's one of the use cases is that crisis intervention and getting to somebody before

they go to that next step that they shouldn't, that irrevocable next step.

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The other thing, working with a bunch of late diagnosed ADHD women has been super fun.

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They're actually one of our biggest users of the app so far.

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And so what these women love is their type A

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ADHD really deep in their career, but they might have social issues where they don't know

what their boss is saying to them.

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They don't understand what that socially means.

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Was that sarcastic?

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How should they approach this?

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So there is an AI agent that they can talk to that's even inside the platform as well as

the phone.

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the SMS, so your texting is going to be aligned with the portal.

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So you can use either or and it's

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pulling in your information and saving it and bringing you that context so that it can

pull it up at a glance whenever you have an issue.

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But some of these women are using it for task administration, task assignment,

understanding what they should and shouldn't do, helping them with task breakdown.

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So again, it's all in the everyday application.

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It could be for the corporate girly who has ADHD and has a boss that's driving them crazy.

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It could be for the kid who's being bullied at the bus stop.

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And we try to stop that before it goes any further.

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And then it could be for my kid who's at the doctor's office is trying to blow up his mom

with questions that he probably could just turn around and ask the doctor about, but he's

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too scared to do so.

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And I very much thank you and praise you for that because as a lot of my listeners know,

the typical stereotype of a neurodivergent person is a male.

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So thank you.

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Thank you for helping the neurodivergent women because they often sadly go undiagnosed and

unsupported.

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So I hope this app helps them.

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So I'm noticing a lot of your conviction in this seems rooted not just in design training,

but in the reality of your

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house with four, four neurodivergent kids and, you as an, as a founder with ADHD.

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So since you have ADHD as a founder raising four, four kids, a lot of mothers are probably

wondering, how do you do it?

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How do you balance it all and be an entrepreneur?

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um Yeah, I don't.

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I don't do it well.

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I would love to say that, gosh, if I could wave a magic wand, I'd be the best mother ever.

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I think that being a late diagnosed person with ADHD, there was some grief involved with

that where when I was a little girl, and I think a lot of women who are listening to this

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is going to, this might resonate, I was told I talk too much.

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I talk too fast.

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I'm too insistent.

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Why can't I pay attention?

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I was called a space cadet on my soccer team.

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There's all so many ways and so many things that people address to me that made me feel

shame.

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I think there's that 20,000 no stat where a neurodivergent kid hears 20,000 more nos than

other neurotypical children by the time they're 18, which is, that's so sad.

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And I think that the one thing we try not to do is shame.

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So shame is a huge part of our family construct.

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So I know my kids hate it, but you're not allowed to make fun of anybody for anything that

they can't change in five minutes.

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So if there's a booger in their nose, yes, you can say, hey, clean your nose.

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But if it's something to do with their weight or their hair or something more permanent,

no, I don't care if you're siblings, that's not cool.

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We don't talk to each other like that.

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And then I think it's just practicing compassion and kindness, trying to address the

underlying conditions for why somebody is acting out.

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I'm on a lot of Facebook groups with moms of kids with autism and some of the things I see

that just bring back some PTSD.

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My child finally potty trained at eight.

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I feel that to my core.

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My child said hi to me, finally, a nonverbal child.

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And you just, it's like everything, it's ecstasy.

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And I remember having that ecstasy moment where I'm at the school.

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and there was this, the teacher had a ukulele and it was like a little lunchtime session.

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And I went there and my kid was dancing and it was crazy to me.

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I mean, I'll cry.

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I'm gonna try not to cry.

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It's one of those moments where I just wanted to cry because he kept rhythm.

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Now his rhythm was opposite of everyone else's, but he kept rhythm.

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And watching him do that in that moment, I just knew it was going to be okay.

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So I think if there's anything I can tell any parent who's starting this journey is get

over the cringe, because it's all going to be cringy.

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And you're going to have to look in the mirror a lot at that person in front of you,

because that person is going to go through some things.

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And it's okay.

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And you can make mistakes and just be ready to tell your kid you're sorry.

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And I always tell my kids, don't worry, I'm saving for your therapy.

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Because having an ADHD mom cannot be easy.

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you know, bless you all for having to go through it with me.

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Yep.

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And it reminds me of something back in the day, I remember watching a quantum leap, the

series starring Scott Bakula was.

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Your story remind me of one episode where a deaf girl, was, she, her dream was to be a

dancer and everyone told her like she struggled.

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She couldn't follow instructions and everyone told her she cannot be a dancer.

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You're to be stuck in your dead end job at a waitress forever.

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And because you can't follow instructions, you can't do

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basic things that dancers do.

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But Scott Bakula's character, he performed a miracle in the show where he arranged for her

to meet a famous choreographer.

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And she saw firsthand that even though one girl who was deaf could not hear instruction,

she can feel the music and she could perform better than most other people in the class.

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that was just...

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I felt really emotional seeing that because again, when you hear disability, people here

cannot do, but guess what?

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A of with disabilities can do amazing things.

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I think a lot of parents are curious, as a busy parent with also neurodivergent, so did

you ever have an aha moment that helped you to recognize that you yourself are...

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or, uh, yeah, also I have ADHD.

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you, do you have an aha moment?

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Ah, a lot of aha moments, I think.

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I wanna go back though to what you just said.

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actually have, I did wanna say something about what you had just said before I go into

that.

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I was at the Neurodiversity Expo that was held in Colorado just this past weekend.

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And it was a wonderful event.

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I recommend to any neurodivergent parent to go there.

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Big shout out to Leanne for spearheading that.

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The one thing, I was talking to a woman who works with kids who are nonverbal, so autistic

nonverbal.

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And she said that the challenge she has seen is that we have this expectation that tests

are run this way and that if a child can perform that test, that means they're completely

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competent.

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She assumes competency every time.

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So she will always be challenged by the idea of, and I wish I remembered this young

woman's name and I feel bad I don't, but she was extraordinary.

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And she talked about how maybe a kid physically can't touch the screen to touch the color

blue.

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So it had nothing to do with whether he knew what color was blue, but it could be that

their brain isn't telling their hand which button to push, but it doesn't mean that they

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don't know that the color is blue.

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And I think that was an aha moment this weekend for me.

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Because I think that always expecting competency and always thinking a child is bright and

they know what's happening and just waiting for them to work through whatever it is to the

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next side of it.

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I think that's our job is to be patient and just to look at all the different ways that we

can help a child explore the foundation of how it is to live in this world.

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That's so beautiful.

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think another question a lot of parents will have is what because parenting is a very

difficult full time job.

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So how do you find the time to throw in there entrepreneurship as well?

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Do you have any tips for parents who are considering becoming an entrepreneur?

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Well, it helps to have ADHD because you constantly are looking for the novel.

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You can never sit still.

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So you're always wanting to move forward.

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I think anybody can be an entrepreneur.

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I really believe that.

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I believe anybody could be an entrepreneur.

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I think it's really hard to find that piece that helps spur you to that being an

entrepreneur.

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And I think that a few years ago, I was working at a startup.

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and the gentleman I was working for, a nice guy, and he was maybe 31 years old, and he was

a CEO, and he had been working at that company for two years, and he didn't know anything

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more than I knew.

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He didn't know how to work harder.

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He didn't know, and not that he wasn't a hard worker, there was nothing more special about

him that made me go, oh, I could never be a CEO.

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I think it was the first time I said to myself, oh.

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this guy can do it, I could do it.

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He didn't make it look hard.

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And I do think being an entrepreneur is hard, but I think in your head when you're in

corporate America for so many years, you're just thinking all these thoughts like, you

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might have to know what a 10K form is and you would have to know, you don't have to know

any of that.

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You can figure anything out.

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There's a lot of resources out there.

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One of the resources for anybody who's looking to start their own business, I love telling

people.

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is start at the SBDC, start, well, at least in Colorado.

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So start at the Small Business Association.

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Go to your local Small Business Association.

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They have all these free programs.

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They're, I mean, they're exploding with AI programs in particular.

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But for instance, I just received a Broomfield, that's where I live, micro grant for

$5,000.

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And that's for small businesses as well.

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And that was, and I guess not a lot of people have known, know about it and they don't

apply to it.

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So they have this funding.

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And I was in a TVX accelerator up in Boulder.

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uh Again, these are all free resources for your state or for your local communities and

municipalities.

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And so if you are even thinking about it, go for it.

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Now, how do I balance as a parent and an entrepreneur?

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Well, my husband is my chief architect and head of engineering.

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So that's been helpful.

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I did all the fun and then of course, I have to.

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give it to my husband and say, okay, I broke this, fix it for me.

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So he's really helped me build the platform.

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And to listen to my husband, Rich Long, he is a miracle.

372

He's a wonderful parent.

373

He's a beautiful father.

374

He's a soccer coach to our sons and our daughter.

375

And the cool thing about him is he is just as jazzed to support this community as I am.

376

Like we are, we are,

377

I call us the power couple.

378

And I know that sounds horrible.

379

People probably hate that, but ah I really do.

380

And I can't say our marriage has been just the most, you know, it's not always been like

flowers and kittens and puppies, but by doing this together, we have a shared common

381

interest and it is a passion that's just, it's just pulling us together.

382

And this weekend we were at the Neurodiversity fair, we had our son Griffin there and he

was manning the booth.

383

He had to get some volunteer hours for national honor society.

384

So he was there and it was just,

385

It was fun watching him pitch.

386

So I can't do it alone.

387

I have so many people to help me.

388

And I guess that's the answer to that question.

389

I love that.

390

It does.

391

It just shows like how important it is to have a very supportive partner.

392

Yeah, having a supportive partner is very important in this day and age and a lot of

parents probably are wondering like how do you have a boundary to separate between founder

393

brain and parent brain?

394

Oh, that is a good question.

395

I know big, big sigh there.

396

um

397

I probably right now, because we're about to launch the commercial product, we're probably

90 days away from commercialization.

398

So we are in a sprint of a lifetime.

399

So I would say right now I'm useless to my kids.

400

but the cool, the thing that I have always instilled in my kids is independence.

401

They all do their own laundry.

402

They all make their own meals.

403

Sometimes I have them make our meals.

404

What I actually did recently, which

405

my mentor suggested, he said that I should get an administrative assistant.

406

Well, my 18 year old daughter is jobless and can't find one.

407

So, and she's just like me, she's very organized.

408

So I asked if she wanted to be my administrative assistant.

409

And you know, Nathan, she said, send me a job posting.

410

And so I can really understand the requirements of the position.

411

And then I interviewed her and she did great.

412

And so I hired her.

413

And so that's the other thing is my kids are super supportive of us and what we're doing.

414

And it really is a family affair.

415

And even Jack last night, he's like, how's the product?

416

And I don't think he's asked me once in this past year, but he's like, how's the product?

417

And I was like, the product's good.

418

Anything you want to talk about?

419

And so I showed him where we're at and what the status is in the product.

420

And so that was really fun.

421

I think we just have a family unit.

422

We're all a team.

423

Everybody understands that this is just where mom is right now and that this is my

passion.

424

And my kids are just, my gosh, they're my biggest cheerleaders and champions.

425

So I can't ask for a better situation.

426

That's beautiful.

427

So that brings us straight to, the ethics and the line between support and surveillance.

428

So Nixit appears in AI for Good Showcases and Colorado's RMAIIG community.

429

When you're pitching Nixit in that context, what ethical guardrails do you highlight to

differentiate it from things like behavior tracking, tracking apps?

430

It could potentially be weaponized.

431

Oh, yeah, I think, you know, that's, that's always a challenge.

432

So Rocky Mountain AI group, we have been a part of the Rocky Mountain AI group for two

years.

433

If anybody's looking to get involved in the startup community in the Boulder area in

particular, I think they have chapters throughout the state, but that's where we met a lot

434

of our friends and a lot of our network has been with Rocky Mountain AI group.

435

I'm on the Women's Advisory Board for Women in AI and there is ethics in AI.

436

And I think that's some of the questions we've had to ask about the ethics of what we're

doing.

437

some of, I would say maybe 20 % of the monthly meetings are all about ethics and morality

and regulations and compliance.

438

And that's probably one of the biggest concerns of our lifetime right now, or at least you

and I, our lifetime is how AI is going to impress upon not only the economy, but us as

439

community members.

440

It can be used to...

441

weaponize our community.

442

And so we have to be very cognizant and make sure that we're thinking of those things.

443

you know, I think of three things.

444

I think user autonomy is sacred.

445

We've talked about this before, which is the user gets to control everything.

446

They control their data.

447

It stays private.

448

We keep it in a closed system.

449

We I'm talking to a compliance attorney next week because I don't find HIPAA or SOC 2 type

2 to be enough.

450

Those are

451

regulatory measures for information.

452

if, let's say for an example, somebody writes, my panties are yellow.

453

As a mom, I mean, that's not a HIPAA violation if somebody finds that out or they take a

screenshot or something.

454

But I do think in the world of AI, a lot of those compliance and regulatory systems that

are put in place were prior to AI.

455

nothing, I mean, we have not caught up to the technology.

456

And just allowing it to run unregulated isn't quite it either.

457

So autonomy is sacred.

458

User controls their information 100%.

459

And number two, we never build surveillance features.

460

It has to be consent architecture.

461

And the consent can be given or taken away by the user.

462

And like I said before, parents might get really upset about that.

463

But we have to.

464

Your child will just perform for you if they think that you are going to just go in and

read what they're writing anyway.

465

Surveillance features are not built in.

466

We will never build surveillance features.

467

And number three, we are building towards an employee cooperative model.

468

So the people building the tools and using the tools, we will share power.

469

And so we're not building another tech empire that extracts value from the vulnerable

population.

470

That's a no-no.

471

That's immoral.

472

We are building infrastructure for the collective liberation for the neurodivergent

community.

473

And this isn't just hyperbole.

474

It's literally in our manifesto.

475

It's literally in our culture and it is in our product pillars for everything that we

build.

476

I love it.

477

So from your vantage point, what regulations or industry norms would you love to see

emerge around AI tools for neurodivergent people?

478

Yeah, I mean, in the world of deep fakes and I mean, so many, so many things that I don't

think my mother, my mother, grandmother would have ever envisioned.

479

Then I don't think they would have envisioned the cell phone either.

480

I think for us, what regulations I would love to see is clear data ownership rights for

users, mandatory transparency about what data is collected and who gets to see it, who is

481

authorized to see your data.

482

prohibition on selling user data to third parties.

483

That has to be part of it.

484

And honestly, some kind of certification for neurodiversity affirming that actually means

something.

485

That isn't just a piece of paper that somebody can post on their website.

486

We see that quite often.

487

And I hope that we are not mistaken for that.

488

And that's something that I'm trying to get through because I want to be somewhere where

you can trust your data to be.

489

And so there has to be neurodiversity affirming, but that's just not marketing.

490

Right now, anybody can slap ADHD friendly on an app.

491

We need standards.

492

It's an, as a person who suffers from celiac disease for 20 years, I go into restaurants.

493

This is very much like restaurants where they say we're gluten friendly and gluten

friendly means that there's gluten everywhere in the kitchen and that gluten is going to

494

get into the food and then I'll get sick later.

495

And I think that's one way I'm going to hear neurodiversity affirming.

496

or ADHD friendly.

497

To me, it's like how friendly, how neurodivergent, how clear are you on your rules, how

clear are you in your regulations, what kind of certification, what goes on behind, I

498

think the most important part is intention.

499

What is your intention as a company?

500

If your intention is to make money at all costs, I will put my dollar elsewhere.

501

Okay.

502

Now just slowly, slowly wrap things up though.

503

For neurodivergent listeners who are burned by traditional productivity tools and apps,

what's one mindset shift and one practical experiment you invite them to try whether or

504

not they ever use Nixit?

505

Oh, I think this is good because I'd love everybody to use Nixit, but I think that there's

a couple things you can do that you don't have to log into any platform if that doesn't

506

feel comfortable to you.

507

I would say the one thing is you are not broken.

508

I'm so tired of that.

509

You are not broken.

510

There's literally nothing to fix.

511

So I think that's important.

512

And I also think that the tools...

513

that have been built that people have been using were built wrong.

514

They want you to download an app, call a hotline, maybe make a doctor's appointment three

months from today.

515

That's not helpful.

516

So I think stop trying to force yourself into systems designed for other brains.

517

And I think a good practical experiment might be for one week, only track what you did

accomplish.

518

I was having coffee with a friend this morning and we were talking about

519

my app and what we're trying to promote, is joy is resistance.

520

There's a whole gamification that's going to come hopefully by the end of Q2.

521

And the gamification is joy by doing.

522

So it will just be fun to do, to go into the app to use it.

523

But I think you can do that anyway.

524

If you were to write down all the things that you did.

525

So my friend, for instance, said, yeah, I'm doing yoga every day.

526

I'm doing deep, deep thinking or no deep work three times a week.

527

I'm studying for creative writing and she had all these wonderful things.

528

But all anybody wanted to talk to her about was her business and her entrepreneurship.

529

And they said, well, just start writing that down.

530

Like write down everything that you feel you did that week that you are proud of and stop

thinking like get rid of anything that you forgot to do.

531

Who cares?

532

It is not that serious.

533

If you forgot to thaw the turkey, did you eat that day?

534

Yeah, you did.

535

So you're fine.

536

And I think that's the thing we have to understand is just this world can be cruel and

this world can chew you up.

537

And I think you are your best advocate and your best cheerleader and no one's gonna

cheerlead you like yourself.

538

So make sure that you're appreciating all the different wonders of yourself and write it

down, keep track of it.

539

I love it.

540

For leaders and educators, what message do you have for them for the first thing they

should stop doing tomorrow if they want to be neuro affirming and the very first thing,

541

especially how they get started to be more neuro affirming.

542

Yeah, I will say our school system is incredible.

543

We have had nothing but great experiences with our schools.

544

I mean, we've had a couple doozies in the beginning, but I would say for the most part,

our schools and our teachers are amazing and I celebrate them.

545

They are doing a wonderful job and I definitely feel like they don't get paid enough.

546

So just want to throw that out there.

547

The one thing I would say though, that you go to the classroom in the elementary school

and you'll see like red, yellow, green.

548

and you get a red card if you've been too naughty and what does naughty mean?

549

Were you too fidgety or whatever?

550

So it's like, there's a lot of emphasis on behavioral compliance.

551

So I would stop measuring compliance and calling it success.

552

It's not success if you have well-behaved kids.

553

That's really not the measurement.

554

I would say stop rewarding masking.

555

Stop assuming that someone who can't sit still or someone who can't make eye contact isn't

paying attention to you.

556

I'm a doodler.

557

When I'm doodling, I am probably more attentive than you can ever imagine, but I have to,

I'm constantly moving.

558

Like right now, underneath this desk, my feet are moving.

559

I have to be moving at all time and it doesn't mean that I'm not present.

560

And I think that's, we need to stop thinking that that's, that our kids aren't listening

to us.

561

What we need to do is start asking, what do you need to do to do your best work?

562

We need to ask those questions.

563

What do you need?

564

How do I support you with where you're at?

565

And then I want them to listen to that answer.

566

I want them to listen.

567

And I think that if they were to listen to the children and just help them, I think it

would be a much different experience and I think it would be more positive.

568

I can think of Jess Knopfsinger, if you're out there listening to this incredible teacher,

she's always, she's been a teacher to all my children.

569

And she's that one teacher that just celebrates who they are.

570

She meets them where they're at.

571

And I think that's important.

572

And I think like I talked about earlier with that young woman who assumed competence,

assume competence, start measuring outcomes, not process.

573

That is so beautiful.

574

Another question is, what's a recent yes or big or small win that you're really proud of

for you that your kids uh received?

575

Oh, so many.

576

One that I thought of before this call, so we have a cohort of 15 testers.

577

And one of the testers gave us feedback on the product so far.

578

And the feedback, it is a prototype.

579

So if anybody goes through uh www.nixit.ai and they log in, it's a prototype.

580

It's not going to be perfect just yet.

581

We are going to launch the actual app within 90 days.

582

But if you go to the prototype and you actually try to play with it, it really is

wonderful to give us feedback and to let us know how it's working.

583

And that's how we're able to adjust and add and update features.

584

But I digress.

585

So one of the testers told us a story where he went into the SMS.

586

He had a doctor's, oh, he had to get a prescription.

587

renewed for his ADHD medication and he was scared.

588

He was scared to call the doctor.

589

It just felt like he'd, who would he call?

590

How would he do it?

591

How would he get this renewed?

592

So he went into Nixit and he basically said, I'm having a hard time.

593

I'm supposed to call the doctor.

594

don't know what I should be saying to the doctor.

595

And Nixit says, okay, first breathe.

596

Second, I'm so proud of you.

597

This is a big thing to even think about.

598

So let's start going through the steps.

599

And each time you do one these steps, let me know you're done and we'll go to the next

step.

600

So the first step is let's practice that conversation.

601

And so he was able to practice the conversation with Nixit.

602

And anyway, then Nixit put him through all the different steps.

603

He was able to call the doctor and he said it was like, it was a huge weight off his

shoulders and it wasn't as hard as he thought it was going to be.

604

And just getting those steps and being able to walk through the steps with Nixit meant

everything.

605

don't, I mean, I tell my team, we are saving lives.

606

We're saving mental health.

607

We're here to be kind and we are here as liberation for human dignity and there's not

enough of that in that world.

608

So anytime somebody feels that human dignity experienced from using our app, nothing's a

bigger win than that for us.

609

That is so beautiful and thank you, Kathy.

610

And in closing, what message do you have for all the neurodivergent mothers out there?

611

love yourself first.

612

Get yourself lots of water.

613

Get an exercise routine, stick with it.

614

Even if it's walking for 10 minutes or breathing or meditating.

615

A mom I was talking to last week, she gets up at 5 a.m.

616

and walks her dog around the block.

617

It's not even far, but it's her one moment where she's, completely silent and it just

gives her just enough to get through the day and just.

618

hug yourself, love yourself, and know that this time is temporary as a mom and that your

child is going to be what they're going to be regardless of what you do.

619

So even when you get fussy with them or things aren't going your way or there's a diaper

blowout somewhere, at the end of the day, you're going to get through it.

620

You're going to survive.

621

And you have me as a resource.

622

If anybody wants to reach out, I love mentoring others, advising others, especially women

in the entrepreneurship space.

623

other ADHD women, women who are just AI curious.

624

I'm happy to talk to you.

625

So anybody can reach out to me.

626

It's Cathy at nixit.ai, K-A-T-H-Y at nixit.ai.

627

Wonderful.

628

thank you, Kathy.

629

And that's a wrap.

630

Neurosec is all about turning momentum to action, real stories, practical tools and honest

conversations.

631

And if you want to be a guest or if you have a story that needs to be heard, like Kathy's,

send me a message.

632

Let's make a difference together.

633

And thank you, everyone, for listening and be sure to subscribe to my YouTube channel.

634

Take care, everyone.

635

Bye.