L2M – VirtualSLP

VirtualSLP is an AI-powered platform transforming care for patients with neurologic speech disorders. Conditions such as ALS often cause bulbar impairments—loss of speech, swallowing, and facial expression—that devastate quality of life. Yet clinicians, particularly speech-language pathologists (SLPs), face overwhelming barriers: caseloads as high as 600 patients per year, only 15–20 minutes per visit, and no standardized, easy-to-use tools. As a result, care is inconsistent, delayed, and less effective than it could be.

The need for better solutions is clear. Our team, led by Dr. Yana Yunusova, has decades of experience at the intersection of research and clinical practice. Communities of Practice uniting 200+ SLPs in Canada and the U.S. further highlight the urgency and scale of the problem.

VirtualSLP addresses this gap with a web-based platform that integrates remote multimodal assessments and AI-driven insights. Patients complete validated assessments online, while the platform extracts 200+ acoustic and movement features to detect early signs of bulbar disease and classify severity. Upcoming modules will predict disease progression within a six-month window and deliver GenAI-powered, evidence-based recommendations, enabling personalized, efficient, and scalable care.

Backed by $3M in research funding, VirtualSLP is clinically validated and built with direct input from both patients and providers. With a $400M obtainable market and 70% of SLPs projected to adopt telehealth by 2030, it is positioned to become a game-changing solution that improves patient outcomes, streamlines clinician workflows, and scales across healthcare systems.

VirtualSLP: where AI meets patient-first neurological care.

Faculty Supervisor:

Yana Yunusova

Student:

Partner:

DMZ Ventures Inc

Discipline:

Life Sciences

Sector:

Professional, scientific and technical services

University:

University of Toronto