Jacob Haendel and his app Ahoi have teamed up with the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Commission to create an internship program to support people with disabilities, provide them with vocational training and help improve the app.
Ahoi's creation grew out of Haendel's own experience with toxic acute progressive leukoencephalopathy a few years ago. When he was diagnosed, doctors gave him six months to live, with the last two months of his life being in a coma. But Haendel says he was in a “locked state” — aware of the world around him, but unable to communicate with anybody.
In a twist of fate, Haendel recovered and participated in months of work and rehabilitation.
Haendel, a former executive chef, then co-founded Ahoi based on an app born of Haendel’s experience navigating Boston in a wheelchair. The app launched in May 2023, and 18 months later, has over 2,000 years and 6,000 reviews in Massachusetts. It has had little to no investment in marketing, according to Haendel.
The app relies on crowdsourcing to identify accessible and non-accessible spaces in Boston. But now, Haendel and the team at Ahoi are partnering with the Massachusetts Rehabilitation Center to launch an internship pilot program based on vocational rehabilitation.
The Ahoi internship program, sponsored by MRC, started in July and lasts three months. Ahoi selected 21 interns from around Massachusetts, ranging in age from 19 to 72, to participate.
“The way that we designed this program is by thinking about how we can build this internship program to give these individuals hands-on experience working at a startup,” said Chris Beissel, CEO of Ahoi. “Exposure to all these different guest speakers, and exposure to what it might be like working in a number of different industries, but also getting product feedback and seeing how the tech is made, and having them meet each other.”
Interns participating in the program get paid “significantly” above minimum wage and work to the degree they are able within a predetermined 20-30 hour work week, according to Haendel.
In addition to providing professional skills and payment for the first class of Ahoi interns, the program is intended to strengthen and broaden Ahoi’s services.
Because the app relies on crowdsourcing locations, the geographically diverse interns provide data for more locations, allowing it to serve a broader range of users.
“MRC clients can go around their neighborhood and review sidewalk health and physical premises, everything from a bar, a restaurant, a park, hotel, anything on Google Maps, essentially,” said Haendel. “And it's a win-win-win because their clients are getting a paid opportunity, while skill-building everything from travel training to calendar management to meeting etiquette, and even resume help.”
According to Haendel, the internship program filled up its 21 slots quickly and has a waitlist. The internship ends in September, and Haendel and the Ahoi team will host an event at Equal Measure in Fenway on Sept. 10 before taking the interns to a Red Sox Game.
“Something I'm working with a lot of these interns on is confidence and the ability to leave your house and speak up and talk to people,” said Haendel. “When you have a disability, you're kind of shy to be a burden. So part of it was to see these interns make amazing progress, and I knew they would.”
