Social impact entrepreneur Alison Harrington has built her third business, Resparke, by combining her technology expertise with a passion for creating joy and meaningful change in the often-overlooked aged care space.

Looking back, Harrington says her entrepreneurial streak was always there and tells Women’s Agenda that even as a child, she felt a pull towards the world of business.

“I was creating little micro businesses even when I was a teenager,” Harrington says. “I think I’ve always had that underlying drive to be an entrepreneur.”

While the majority of her career had been in technology, Harrington went back to university to study social impact. It was during her course at UNSW that the idea for Resparke was ignited.

At the time, Harrington’s father-in-law had been diagnosed with dementia, and Harrington realised that his favourite music was allowing him a pathway to joy and reminiscing on the old times.

Looking at ways to expand this experience to more dementia patients, Harrington came up with the idea of using silent disco technology to allow loved ones to connect through the universal language of music.

“It was just a fantastic intersection of my technology expertise and my deep desire to create a business that was purposeful and meaningful in the world,” said Harrington, adding that “the magic dust on top of it all is that I just love creating moments of joy and music and dancing, which has always been the essence of Resparke.”

The Resparke programs use wireless headphone technology to provide immersive and engaging audio alongside visual programs for residents in aged care living with dementia.

Research has shown Resparke to significantly reduce mild to moderate behaviours for dementia care residents, and that it has a positive impact on staff and carers.

Already reaching 25,000 seniors a year, Harrington’s goal for Resparke is to reach half a million seniors by 2027 across aged care, home care and in the community.

“It was just a fantastic intersection of my technology expertise and my deep desire to create a business that was purposeful and meaningful in the world. The magic dust on top of it all is that I just love creating moments of joy and music and dancing, which has always been the essence of Resparke.”

Resparke 2.0

Expanding the already vast impact, Resparke has just launched its second version, based on customer feedback and assessed need.

“At the end of last year, we realised that people were having amazing moments and improved wellbeing with the platform, but we might send two or three tablets for Resparke into a home that has 80 to 120 people living in it,” Harrington said, noting the problem was that not everyone was able to experience Resparke 24/7.

“What became very apparent for us is that the biggest tablet in all of the aged care homes was the smart TV’s in everyone’s room.”

With this in mind, the new technology in Resparke’s second version now allows for the programs to be used on the TVs, making it easy for family members and carers to set up for residents.

“We've made the interface look like popular streaming platforms, so it's very easy to use. It's something people are familiar with, and the carers can just walk into the room and select something, and families are using it,” Harrington says.

“We've made the [Resparke] interface look like popular streaming platforms, so it's very easy to use. It's something people are familiar with."

The innovation journey

When it comes to entrepreneurship and creating a product to fit the market, Harrington has learned to be “absolutely tenacious”.

“Entrepreneurs, by their very nature, are people who take an idea and bring it to life," Harrington says, noting that at the beginning of the journey, you often end up having to do most of the work by yourself.

“I had to build the software. I had to hire training teams. I had to do the marketing.”

As the business grows, however, she says “you then need to start shifting gears” by “letting go and putting a management team in place”, which has been a big part of her own journey.

“Intuitively you might feel like you've got to be across everything, but then you realise that a big part of success in business is to clearly communicate the vision.”

In talking to customers and being the ambassador for the business, Harrington says she’s become much more forward focused, especially now that Resparke is scaling to larger levels.

When it comes to making it as an entrepreneur, her number one piece of advice is to “as quickly as possible validate your idea with the market”, meaning it’s important to be talking to customers to better understand the problems that matter to them.

Secondly, Harrington recommends surrounding yourself with the support of fellow entrepreneurs and being open to learning from others.

“Being an entrepreneur is often a very solo endeavour, and it can be very challenging physically and emotionally. There are many ups and downs, so it's really important that you have a support structure in place.”

This article was written in partnership with and originally published by Women's Agenda.