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SINGAPORE \u2013 What started as a personal struggle with their own dogs has become an entrepreneurial success story for two 18-year-olds at Singapore Polytechnic (SP).\u00a0<\/p>\n
Second-year business students Hyuga Karamochi and Caleb Yap Keane Yang have made impressive headway with their start-up, Broby, an artificial intelligence (AI) transcribing tool that automates medical documentation for veterinarians.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The idea of starting a business related to pets germinated when Hyuga\u2019s four-year-old toy poodle Abby had to wear the Elizabethan collar after a minor surgery in 2024.<\/p>\n
Seeing how his dog struggled with the cone, Hyuga and Caleb came up with the idea of a bitter-tasting bandage to prevent pets from licking wounds.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The two classmates set up Broby, a portmanteau of their pets\u2019 names \u2013\u00a0Caleb\u2019s cavapoo Brownie and Hyuga\u2019s Abby.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But feedback for their initial business idea from veterinarians was not promising. They were told that such bandages are not new and most dogs would find a way to chew off even the bitterest patch.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat idea didn\u2019t work and, at first, it felt like a setback,\u201d Caleb said. The Singaporean added that the more time they spent shadowing vets, the more they noticed that vets spend huge amounts of time writing consultation notes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
In April, the students decided to pivot their passion project to a smarter solution: to develop an AI tool that auto-generates notes and valuable data for research and reports.<\/p>\n
As neither of them had any technical knowledge, they taught themselves coding basics and leaned on friends from SP\u2019s School of Computing, as well as external mentors.<\/p>\n
Through SP Overseas Entrepreneurship Immersion Programme and WaveSparks\u2019 Young Founders Summit, Hyuga and Caleb were introduced to Dr Vanessa Lin from My Family Vet in Singapore and Dr Daniel Wilfred of Vet Partners in Johor Bahru. Both agreed to help them pilot and refine their idea.<\/p>\n
With the two vets providing valuable real-life data, the students built Broby \u2013 a Chrome extension and web application that uses speech-to-text technology to transcribe and summarise veterinary consultations. The software will generate complete consultation notes in real time, addressing the critical pain point of the massive hours spent on paperwork.<\/p>\n
Unlike generic AI solutions, Broby is custom-trained on veterinary terminology and the unique characteristics of veterinary workflows.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe realised that vets sometimes speak three or four languages and dialects in the same consultation. So, our AI needed to be able to handle Singlish, Mandarin, Malay, Tamil and Japanese \u2013 not just standard English or American accents,\u201d said Hyuga, a Singapore PR.<\/p>\n
While AI-powered note-taking for doctors and vets is not new, Broby sets itself apart by prioritising multilingual accuracy, especially for South-east Asian clinics.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of US-based tools don\u2019t work well with our accents or when people switch languages mid-sentence. But our tool was trained using real consultation recordings from Singapore and Malaysia, so it\u2019s far more accurate,\u201d said Caleb.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They collaborated with both Dr Lin and Dr Daniel during the product\u2019s development, training and testing phases, which spanned about three to four months of constant iterations and data gathering.<\/p>\n
The vets\u2019 valuable inputs allowed the accuracy rate of Broby\u2019s AI system to hit about 92 to 95 per cent, even in multilingual scenarios.<\/p>\n
The attention to local needs paid off. Since Broby was incorporated in July, using initial funding from SP, the take-up rate among veterinarians has grown steadily. The software is now used by 21 vets from nine clinics \u2013\u00a0five from Singapore, four from Malaysia \u2013 each subscribing at a rate of $99 a month.<\/p>\n
Dr Lin and Dr Daniel have nothing but praise for the students\u2019 enthusiasm, perseverance and professionalism.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have been thoroughly impressed throughout our collaboration with their exceptional work put into developing the AI system for daily history taking,\u201d said Dr Lin, who started My Family Vet Clinic in 2012.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe system is not only technically sound, but it is also genuinely useful and thoughtfully designed for vets like myself.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n