Startup's Revolutionary AI Helps Tell Your Family's Story in a Book

Pass on family stories. This is what Raciines, this Toulouse start-up, can do, which is launching the publication of a book which tells the story of a loved one. A grandmother or grandfather can now easily publish a book telling their journey, their story in order to share it with their loved ones. An act which takes on its full importance since one in five newborns will not know at least one of their grandparents and one in two people have already lost their grandmother.

The writing of the book ensured by AI

“Many people have not known one or more of their grandparents even though seniors are afraid of being forgotten and want to pass on a family memory” explains Mannaïg Fouillen, co-founder of Raciines with her partner Julien Ségura. This is what motivated the duo to launch Raciines. The writing of the book is assisted by artificial intelligence to make it easy to write. The digital platform offered by the publisher submits up to 300 questions to which the person answers in a short or detailed manner. To produce a 120-page book, you must answer between 60 and 120 questions from the list.

“We tell what we want. We choose the family story that we wish to convey by following the major stages of the grandparents' lives: their childhood, family, loves, moves… The chronology gives a backbone to the book but we can adjust everything and even add questions like 'how did I meet grandpa'”, explains Julien Ségura.

Writing becomes a family adventure

Seniors answer these questions alone or supported by a loved one, a care assistant or a family member. “This allows you to make it a family adventure, especially when you are looking for photos to insert into the story” adds Mannaïg Fouillen. The interface which brings together questions and answers hosted on a secure space is accessible to the whole family who can follow the progress of the book.

Once answered, the questions are automatically classified by chapter using AI and then printing is started. “Creating the prompt which is used to program the writing process by the AI ​​was one of the most delicate steps in order to guarantee a quality final result” concedes Julien Ségura.

Support the “Vaincre Alzheimer” foundation

This project required a year of development. Raciines was a winner of the Microsoft for start-up competition and won the favorite prize from Boost Campus 47 in Lot-et-Garonne. On the financing side, Adie lent €20,000 to the two entrepreneurs who also carried out crowdfunding via Ulule. Around ten Books have already been pre-sold and the start-up wants to take advantage of Christmas to introduce an original and family gift. The book in digital form costs €39 and is sent to all members of the family and €67 for a paper copy (+ €39 for any additional copy).

For each book sold, €1 is donated to the Fondation Vaincre Alzheimer. The icing on the cake is that on the last page of the book there is a QR code which can link to a video recorded by the author so that subsequent generations can see and hear their grandpa or grandma.