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What started as an assignment for five ICT students at HU grew into a real app for people with aphasia. Rick Ossendrijver finished Express Me, a free Android tablet app that helps users put their thoughts into words. You tap picture-and-word tiles to build a sentence, and a clear voice reads it out. It was a small but exciting launch, showing how a simple student idea can become a practical tool for everyday conversations.
Five ICT students at HU set out to help people with aphasia find and share their words. Rick Ossendrijver completed Express Me, a free Android tablet app that turns picture-and-word tiles into a clear spoken voice. You choose a category, tap the words you need, and combine them into a sentence. People with aphasia who tried the app gave positive feedback, and the content is easy to personalise so it can match each user’s daily life.
Niek de Wit, Rick Ossendrijver and Deva Vrijma, three ICT students at HU, created Express Me after a speech therapist explained how people with aphasia can know a word yet not be able to say it. Their app lets users build sentences from pictures, then speaks them out loud, so a message can still get through when words are stuck. Their self-made video, in which they asked people with aphasia simple questions like “What is your name?”, was viewed thousands of times and won support from the Brain Foundation and the Boogh Aphasia Centre. Between studies and part-time jobs, the team keeps improving a simple, everyday tool that helps real conversations happen.
At the 2016 ProjectB Challenge, the public voted Express Me from HU as their favourite. While Eindhoven's Dream IT team won the jury prize for an app that calms children in hospitals, the public prize celebrated a tool that helps people with aphasia express themselves. The app brings together words with pictures, sorted into categories so the right word is quick to find. It can speak words aloud and share key points from the daily news through smart tiles. That early public win showed how many people saw value in giving aphasia a voice.
Before the app was ready, the idea for Express Me was shared at a public inspiration session as a way to help people with aphasia express themselves. It was an early, hopeful step for the project. The pitch showed that a simple idea, giving pictures and words a voice, could one day become a practical tool for real conversations. That small step would later grow into the app itself.
