August 22, 2014
They’re building up, shipping out and being celebrated as the future of innovation.
The University of Toronto is a hub for many biotech and health innovators looking to develop their research and business acumen through programs, courses, accelerators and more.
With consumers continually looking for the next new thing, it can take a lot for any startup to break through the noise – but two companies from ECE alumni are doing just that.
Both startups recently made headlines from the MIT Technology Review to Wired magazine.
Wearable sensors get a boost
For Engineering alumnus David He (ElecE 0T5), being named one of the MIT Technology Review’s ‘Innovators Under 35’ this week promises to be a big boost for the company he co-founded two years ago, Quanttus.
Quanttus has a simple goal: to change how people manage their own health. The company’s first prototypes are based on He’s PhD work with wearable sensors, specifically those that measure the mechanical functioning of the heart in previously unexplored ways.
MIT Technology Review’s editor-in-chief and publisher Jason Pontin highlights that He is in good company as one of the ‘Innovators Under 35.’
“Previous winners include Larry Page and Sergey Brin, the co-founders of Google; Mark Zuckerberg, the co-founder of Facebook; Jonathan Ive, the chief designer of Apple; and David Karp, the creator of Tumblr,” said Pontin. “We’re proud of our selections and the variety of achievements they celebrate, and we’re proud to add David He to this prestigious list.”
“This watch could finally get your blood pressure under control,” reads the headline of Technology Review’s feature on He. But from the $22 million in venture capital his company has already raised, it seems like it has the potential to do much more.
Read more about David He and Quanttus.
Bionym invites volunteer developers
The clock is counting down for the Nymi – a wristband that uses your heart rate to eliminate the need for passwords, PIN codes and more. Designed by U of T engineering alumni Foteini Agrafioti (ElecE MASc 0T9 PhD 1T1) and Karl Martin (ElecE BASc 0T1 MASc 0T3 PhD 1T0) through their startup Bionym, wearable tech’s much-anticipated fall 2014 release draws near.
Bionym has already received widespread attention from media outlets around the world, including The New York Times, Wired, The Economist and others.
In advance of their consumer launch, they have begun tapping into the tech community’s creativity for more ideas on additional uses for the Nymi. They recently put sample ‘software development kits’ in the hands of volunteer developers, helping them dream up new features to integrate into the Nymi’s offerings in addition to the applications it’s set to ship with, such as auto-unlock-and-lock
“The Nymi can grant you access to devices that are password-protected – be it a phone, tablet, computer or more – when they are nearby one another,” reads a recent post on their blog. “The device will lock again when the Nymi is no longer nearby.”
“From students working on hobby projects, to IT engineers at large companies,” the blog continues, “to those that build products and components for cars, buildings, airlines and stores, we’re looking for people around the world to realize the potential of the Nymi.”
Read more about Bionym’s invitation to developers on Tech Crunch.
With files from Brianna Goldberg
More information:
Marit Mitchell
Senior Communications Officer
The Edward S. Rogers Sr. Department of Electrical & Computer Engineering
416-978-7997; marit.mitchell@utoronto.ca