Caltech/MIT Enterprise Forum

Transformative technology assistive technology - transforms lives of individuals with disabilities, enhancing both the quality and longevity of life. The market is enormous and the rewards are great. Assistive technology companies can both do good and do well. Assistive technology enables individuals with disabilities to perform functions that might otherwise be difficult or impossible. Assistive technology incorporates high-tech materials and engineered parts, as well as hardware, software, and peripherals that assist people with physical, neural or motor disabilities.

Technologies under development are limited only by the innovator s imagination. One product currently in testing aims to assist the visually impaired. Using either sound or vibration, this device helps people see what is in front of them using an infra-red sensor that picks up the reflection of the infra-red radiation and translates it into a map of the area within 15-20 feet and transmits this information by sound or vibration. Biomechanical devices include such devices as the cochlear implant to assist hearing. Electronic bion chips stimulate muscles for those suffering neural damage or disorder. Exo-skeleton devises help people walk. With progress in materials technology and software and control technologies, advances in product engineering and design will be rapid and amazing.

Our program will explore a number of issues important to the entrepreneur, including: promising projects and prospects for assistive technologies in Southern California; the best prospects for entrepreneurs and engineers with smaller budgets; best geographic areas to locate entrepreneurial companies in assistive technologies and Southern California in such comparison; hurdles, regulatory and otherwise, for the development of assistive technology applications; private sector companies in assistive technologies and what they are doing.