Courage To Come Back: Mental Health award recipient wants to use AI to help others learn to read

He was a wildly successful tech entrepreneur with a secret — he couldn’t read. David Chalk of Burnaby is the 2025 Courage To Come Back Award recipient in the Mental Health category.

Chalk says he had a happy-go-lucky childhood until his first day of Grade 1.

“The teacher wanted me to come to the front of the class and read, and I froze, and that was really it for the next 12 years. I realized that I could not read, especially in front of the class,” he explained.

That was only the beginning.

Chalk is neurodivergent, specifically diagnosed with acute dyslexia, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), and prosopagnosia – the inability to recognize faces, among other cognitive challenges.

“That had me, unfortunately, suffer through school at the hands of teachers and at the ends of fists and boots of children in the school at times,” he said.

Despite that, Chalk would become a wildly successful tech entrepreneur. Once upon a time, he was practically a household name in B.C., as host of TV programs like Dave Chalk’s Computer Show and Dave Chalk Connected. He even owned a chain of 16 Doppler Computer super stores.

But his illiteracy would catch up with him in a big way later in life. His inability to read a contract nearly ruined him.

“No one really lost money because I was completely insured. It wasn’t that kind of bankruptcy. I just lost everything I had.”

That setback placed him on the path he is on now, developing Artificial Intelligence technology to help others learn to read. During COVID, he confronted his illiteracy once and for all, with the help of a revolutionary new teaching method.

“Four hours into it, I’m just about breaking down in tears because I can feel inside of me something changing. By hour seven, we started to read out loud, and by the 11th hour, I was reading fluidly … and it never changed, and it never went back. I’m a voracious reader now.”

Now, Chalk is developing a form of AI that can help others learn to read.

“Within a year, I hope to have this technology in the marketplace. And I do believe it can not only change Canada, North America, and can change the entire world, because it is a completely different approach.”

Chalk hopes his story can serve as an example to others.

“Fear has killed more dreams than failure ever could. That would be the message,” he said. “The line that my mom taught me was get out of your own way, and you can do anything you want.”

1130 NewsRadio is a proud sponsor of the 2025 Coast Mental Health Courage To Come Back Awards, which are being handed out Wednesday May 7th at the Vancouver Convention Centre.