Press
Press kit.
Facts, bios, and logos for anyone writing about Voices of History. For anything that isn't here, email founders@voicesofhistory.co.
About Voices of History
Voices of History is an AI history company that builds conversations with historical figures grounded in what each person actually wrote and said. Founded in 2026 by Jonah Aden and Josh Hegstad at Columbia University, the New York company makes DebateHero, a history debate game, and Awaken History, an education product in pilot with courses at Columbia. Every figure draws on a corpus of the person's own words, cites its sources as it talks, and says so when the record runs out.
Fast facts
- Founded
- 2026, incorporated May 5, 2026
- Founders
- Jonah Aden (CEO) and Josh Hegstad (CTO)
- Based in
- New York, NY
- Products
- DebateHero (debatehero.com) and Awaken History (awakenhistory.com)
- In development
- Exhibits for museums and a studio for creators
- Support
- ElevenLabs Grant, PostHog for Startups, Sentry for Startups
Founders
- Jonah AdenCofounder & CEO
- Columbia CS senior (Statistics, Political Science). Previously SWE at Pure Poker. 2024 NASA SUITS lead.
- Joshua HegstadCofounder & CTO
- Columbia CS junior. Built AlignED and Debt Vulture on the same corpus and simulation stack that now powers Voices of History. Previously SWE at Pure Poker. 2025 NASA SUITS lead.
Products
DebateHero
A history debate game. Pick a figure, set a topic, and argue it out while a live judge scores the round and flags fallacies as they land. A new Daily matchup every day needs no account.
Play at debatehero.com ↗Awaken History
Our education product. A student reads a short primer, then sits down with the figure behind it, by voice or by typing, and has to defend what they think. Every conversation ends with a prep card the class picks up from. In pilot with courses at Columbia.
Visit awakenhistory.com ↗
Logos
Use these as they are. Please don't recolor or redraw them.
Elsewhere
Press contact
For interviews, quotes, or a demo, email the founders. We read every message a person actually sends.
founders@voicesofhistory.co