Matthew Kane’s (BA'09) dream was to become a fighter pilot. "I wanted to be a pilot in the military for the longest time." He eventually found his place in uniform, but not before surviving a childhood marked by loss and instability. "My mother passed when I was seven from leukemia.”
After her death, his father struggled with addiction, creating an unstable home environment for Matthew and his sister. Then, at 15, everything changed. "My dad threatened to kill my sister and I.”
Matthew still remembers the day he sought help. "I was going to use the payphones because we didn't have a phone at home.”
When he arrived at school, he learned that the phone lines had been cut after a break-in. A friend used her cellphone to call her mother, who helped connect him with the child welfare system. By the end of the day, Matthew and his sister had entered foster care.
That experience became his fuel.
Finding purpose in military service
His foster father, a former Navy mechanic, encouraged his interest in military service. Matthew joined the Canadian Armed Forces Reserve as soon as he was old enough. When he learned he was too tall to become a fighter pilot, he adjusted his plans and discovered another calling.
Military leaders quickly saw potential. "Some of it was leadership, some of it was aptitude for languages, some of it was problem-solving.”
That path eventually brought him to UNB.
Choosing UNB and charting a new path
Originally considering the Royal Military College of Canada, Matthew chose UNB because it offered one of Canada's only undergraduate military studies programs. When he learned the program was being discontinued, he successfully pushed to complete it anyway.
During his first year, he transferred into military intelligence and trained every summer. By age 19, he qualified as an intelligence officer.
"I was told I was the youngest person to ever qualify as an intelligence officer in Canadian military history."
He also credits professors, including Dr. Lee Windsor and Dr. David Charters (BA’71, MA’73), with supporting him as his military career developed. "Thanks to some great profs at UNB, I got pushed to go overseas.”
Lessons from deployment
In 2008, before completing his final semester, Matthew deployed to Iraq. While there, a convoy he was travelling with was struck by an improvised explosive device, leaving him with injuries that continue to affect him today.
Yet, when people ask about the lasting impact of his deployment, he rarely talks about the explosion. "Everyone always asked me if it was the combat that I saw. It wasn't. It was seeing the kids, the vulnerability of the kids and the loss of innocence in childhood."
For Matthew, the experience struck a deeply personal chord. "I think my childhood trauma had a huge impact on that as well.”
Studying deception and human behaviour
After returning home, he became increasingly interested in the psychology behind deception, trust and human behaviour. After graduating from UNB, he earned a master of arts degree from American Military University and a PhD from Walden University, focusing on deception and human behaviour. He is currently pursuing a MSc at the University of Bath.
Matthew’s expertise led to a successful consulting business, where he trained organizations ranging from Visa and Mastercard to the U.S. Secret Service and Canadian military intelligence units.
"I really liked the problem solving. I spent a lot of time doing counterintelligence work, figuring out when people were lying."
Then the COVID-19 pandemic forced another pivot.
From researcher to AI entrepreneur
As in-person training opportunities disappeared during the pandemic, Matthew began exploring new ways to apply his expertise. Drawing on years of research in deception, psychology and data science, he developed artificial intelligence tools designed to identify potentially deceptive statements in written and spoken communication. What began as a response to changing circumstances evolved into Prodigy Intelligence, the company he now leads as president and CEO.
New challenges, new motivation
Just as the business was growing, however, Matthew faced another challenge: doctors discovered tumours in his lungs. "They originally thought it was cancer.”
Months of tests and appointments eventually led to a diagnosis of pulmonary sarcoidosis, a rare inflammatory disease. "I had a young daughter. This all started when she was four and went till she was seven. It was a key time of her life that I wasn't fully operational for. It was really difficult."
Today, Matthew is in remission and leading the company he built. His team is preparing to launch multilingual deception-detection technology for legal, intelligence and defence markets, building on years of research and expertise.
"We're really happy with where it is," Matthew said of the technology.
The work is already attracting attention. During beta testing, the company's software helped lawyers uncover false information in a high-value divorce case after identifying a statement that appeared deceptive.
Today, he says his daughter is what drives him. “She's my main motivator for absolutely everything in my life."
Earlier in life, Matthew says his greatest motivation was not becoming like his father.
That determination carried him from foster care to UNB, from military service to graduate school and from adversity to entrepreneurship. Today, his clients include some of the world's largest financial institutions, intelligence organizations and law enforcement agencies — an outcome few would have predicted for the teenager who entered foster care carrying little more than a determination to build a different life.
