Our founder story

Where we started

An AI model for YouTube captioning.

Sunflower AI started from a problem with inaccurate YouTube subtitles. Co-founder Lingzhi Kang found herself hand-correcting the auto-captions on her own channel — taking an excessive thirty minutes for a fifteen-minute clip. The ratio was clearly not going to scale, and it was clearly not just her problem.

The company name comes from one of Lingzhi’s most popular videos — a tutorial on crocheting a sunflower. The flower stuck as a symbol of happiness and warmth, which lined up neatly with what we were trying to make: information accessible to anyone in the room.

As demand reached beyond individual creators, the conversations we kept having pointed somewhere else: events. Conferences and church services that needed accurate captions for in-person audiences who spoke very different languages. So we followed the demand and rebuilt the product as a live event captioning platform — and we’ve been there ever since.

Sunflower AI’s earliest YouTube captioning prototype — Hand-correcting YouTube subtitles — the original problem.

The crochet sunflower that gave the company its name — The crochet sunflower video that gave us our name.

Sunflower AI captioning a live in-person event

Where we’re going

Accessible events for everyone.

Our aim is to make every event an inclusive space regardless of language or hearing barriers — a place for meaningful connection, whatever language is spoken and however a person hears.

Meet the team

Chuhao Liu
CEO
- Global Talent Visa holder
- Early Career Researchers Competition winner
Siva Kalyan
CTO
- PhD in Linguistics
- Honorary Fellow, UQ/ANU
- Fast.ai Hackathon winner
Lingzhi Kang
CMO
- YouTuber with 200,000 subscribers
- PhD in Biology