Mike Tozer, Xceptional
Software-testing company Xceptional uses the strengths of certain people on the autism spectrum to find bugs in websites.
He has degrees from Oxford and Harvard, but when Mike Tozer was job-hunting in a new city, he says, it was “a real reminder to me that it can be really hard for anyone to get a job”.
Tozer and his wife Helen moved to Sydney from Hong Kong in late 2016 to chase the best education for their son Josiah, now 7, who has Fragile X syndrome, a genetic condition that predisposes sufferers to autism. Tozer’s adult sister Sarah is also autistic, and his own frustrating work search made him think about her. “If I’m finding it challenging, gosh, think how hard it is for someone who’s not good at selling themselves, who thinks very logically, who might not answer questions in a conventional way,” he says.
“I’ve lived with autism my whole life and it’s had a profound effect on me.” UK-born Tozer’s tech-centric career has included a Hong Kong start-up connecting businesses and non-profits and working as a software developer on the UN-Business Action Hub.
He says a series of steps rather than a single inspiration led to Xceptional, a software-testing services company that uses the unique strengths of certain people on the autism spectrum to find bugs in websites and apps.
If there was a lightbulb moment, it was an episode of the UK series of Employable Me and the story of Brett, a young man with autism, and his journey to get a job in computer-aided design after almost a decade of unemployment. “I thought, wow, what would a whole firm look like made up of people like Brett, who were embraced for their strengths rather than the challenges associated with their disabilities,” says Tozer.
Tozer floated his idea with friends in IT and they got it right away. “They were, ‘Oh yeah, I’ve got a colleague on the spectrum’, or ‘I know people who struggle in interviews’, and they all started to fly the flag for us.” Early in 2017 he put out feelers and soon had testing work, finding staff via his personal networks: “Even before I had a name for the company I realised, wow, this is really happening!”
Tozer and Tim Walton subsequently featured in the first episode of ABC-TV’s Australian version of Employable Me. Walton’s intellect and skills earned him a job at Xceptional, and his whisper-quiet courage won an outpouring of emotional admiration on social media. Since the program aired in April, Tozer says, “we’ve had a 400 per cent increase across the board: candidates contacting us and companies understanding the autism advantage and wanting to hire us”.
Now those businesses are hungry to tap into the talent pool of “hard workers who are in it for the long haul” with exceptional skills in pattern recognition, precision and attention to detail, and Xceptional is rapidly expanding from testing and into data analytics, cyber security and recruitment. “We have people coming to us with multiple degrees,” says Tozer. “One chap we placed with one of our partners has a PhD in astrophysics but he really struggled to sell himself in job interviews.” Through their work with Infosys, says Tozer, “we placed five people with Westpac in their software testing as interns and they performed so well that all were offered permanent contracts, and one of them came up with an algorithm change that’s been implemented across the whole bank.”
An app to help recruiters and people on the spectrum use Xceptional’s method of qualifying candidates – games and tests rather than formal interviews – is in development. “We’re a business, but because of my passion and my particular circumstances our goal is to have a social impact,” says Tozer. “The app will be a big part of helping us expand that impact and grow across Australia and Asia.”
An investment round later this year will help fuel that growth. “There are 230,000 people in Australia with autism, so there’s a huge amount to do,” says Tozer. “Our goal is to create 1000 employment opportunities ... by 2022, but given how fast it’s growing I think we might have to revise that upwards.”
Tozer’s sister Sarah will visit from the UK in December. “She’s doing well – she’s in about three choirs and can tell you anything about any musical,” says her brother. “She’s into the arts, so even though I’ve started a business focused on IT, she now also regularly talks about Xceptional and the fact she’s the inspiration behind it. I’m not saying everyone on the spectrum should be a software tester; it’s about carving out opportunities for them in niche areas that match with their skills.”
