Our Story: A Family Mission

HeyStori was born at the intersection of classroom experience, academic research, and technical innovation.

Meet our Founders

Jen, is a Qualified Teacher with 15 years in the early years sector. After completing a Master’s in Early Childhood Education, her dissertation research into an AI social robot in a preschool revealed a vital truth, while AI can be a powerful educational tool, it must be age-adaptive, structured, and safe to truly benefit a child.

To turn this research into a reality, Jen teamed up with her brother Rick, a talented and experienced software engineer and web designer, to build the Hey Stori platform’s ‘Safe Play’ architecture and create the HeyStori experience. They were then joined by another brother Ben, an experienced entrepreneur and company director, whose business expertise has transformed this educational vision into a viable, professional product capable of reaching families and schools globally.

Together, as a team of siblings, we bring a unique blend of education, engineering, and business strategy to empower the next generation of storytellers.

The Science of Scaffolding

We don’t believe in AI that tells stories to children. We believe in AI that supports the child as the primary author. Our guide, the Stori Sloth of Imagination, uses research-backed scaffolding to:

• Develop Communication: By asking intentional questions, the Sloth helps children verbally describe their ideas and expand their vocabulary.
• Encourage Structured Thinking: Our curriculum-aware, 6-section journey guides children from character creation to a story arc resolution.
• Protect Originality: We help children move away from copyrighted characters and toward their own “Next Big Stars” original heroes never seen before in movies or books.

Bringing Words to Life

At HeyStori, a child’s spoken words become vibrant, professional illustrations. Children can choose from six distinct art styles including Watercolour, Manga, and 3D Animation to see their imagination reflected on the page. These stories aren’t just fleeting moments; they are transformed into digital PDF books that children can keep forever.

A Social Storytelling Ecosystem

We believe that stories are meant to be shared. HeyStori is designed to be a collaborative experience that brings generations together:

• Family Bonding: Parents, carers, and grandparents can join the story-creation process, making it a shared family adventure.
• Community & Connection: We provide opportunities for children to safely share their finished books with family and friends.
• The Classroom & Beyond: By supporting children in collaborating on a story or building one for themselves, we provide a tool that is as useful for school projects as it is for home play.

Our Safety Commitment

Because of our deep roots in education, safety is our primary design principle:

UK GDPR & Children’s Code: We operate under the highest privacy standards, ensuring no behavioural profiling or data selling and Anonymisation by Design. Every interaction is guided and age-specific, ensuring the AI remains a supportive, high-quality educational tool.

Why HeyStori?

We chose the name HeyStori — with an “i” — because at the heart of every book is the Individual author. We are excited to see the worlds children will create and the language skills they will grow as they become the authors of their own adventures.