When Tomás Vega SM ’19 was 5 years outdated, he started to stutter. The expertise gave him an appreciation for the adversity that may include a incapacity. It additionally confirmed him the ability of know-how.
“A keyboard and a mouse had been retailers,” Vega says. “They allowed me to be fluent within the issues I did. I used to be capable of transcend my limitations in a approach, so I grew to become obsessive about human augmentation and with the idea of cyborgs. I additionally gained empathy. I feel all of us have empathy, however we apply it based on our personal experiences.”
Vega has been utilizing know-how to enhance human capabilities ever since. He started programming when he was 12. In highschool, he helped folks handle disabilities together with hand impairments and a number of sclerosis. In school, first on the College of California at Berkeley after which at MIT, Vega constructed applied sciences that helped folks with disabilities stay extra independently.
Right now Vega is the co-founder and CEO of Augmental, a startup deploying know-how that lets folks with motion impairments seamlessly work together with their private computational units.
Augmental’s first product is the MouthPad, which permits customers to regulate their pc, smartphone, or pill by means of tongue and head actions. The MouthPad’s pressure-sensitive contact pad sits on the roof of the mouth, and, working with a pair of movement sensors, interprets tongue and head gestures into cursor scrolling and clicks in actual time through Bluetooth.
“We’ve got a giant chunk of the mind that’s dedicated to controlling the place of the tongue,” Vega explains. “The tongue includes eight muscle tissues, and a lot of the muscle fibers are slow-twitch, which implies they don’t fatigue as shortly. So, I assumed why don’t we leverage all of that?”
Folks with spinal wire accidents are already utilizing the MouthPad each day to work together with their favourite units independently. One in every of Augmental’s customers, who resides with quadriplegia and finding out math and pc science in school, says the system has helped her write math formulation and examine within the library — use circumstances the place different assistive speech-based units weren’t acceptable.
“She will be able to now take notes in school, she will play video games together with her mates, she will watch films or learn books,” Vega says. “She is extra unbiased. Her mother advised us that getting the MouthPad was probably the most important second since her damage.”
That’s the final word objective of Augmental: to enhance the accessibility of applied sciences which have turn into an integral a part of our lives.
“We hope that an individual with a extreme impairment could be as competent utilizing a telephone or pill as anyone utilizing their palms,” Vega says.
Making computer systems extra accessible
In 2012, as a first-year scholar at UC Berkeley, Vega met his eventual Augmental co-founder, Corten Singer. That yr, he advised Singer he was decided to affix the Media Lab as a graduate scholar, one thing he achieved 4 years later when he joined the Media Lab’s Fluid Interfaces analysis group run by Pattie Maes, MIT’s Germeshausen Professor of Media Arts and Sciences.
“I solely utilized to 1 program for grad college, and that was the Media Lab,” Vega says. “I assumed it was the one place the place I may do what I needed to do, which is augmenting human capacity.”
On the Media Lab, Vega took lessons in microfabrication, sign processing, and electronics. He additionally developed wearable units to assist folks entry data on-line, enhance their sleep, and regulate their feelings.
“On the Media Lab, I used to be capable of apply my engineering and neuroscience background to construct stuff, which is what I really like doing probably the most,” Vega says. “I describe the Media Lab as Disneyland for makers. I used to be capable of simply play, and to discover with out concern.”
Vega had gravitated towards the thought of a brain-machine interface, however an internship at Neuralink made him hunt down a special answer.
“A mind implant has the very best potential for serving to folks sooner or later, however I noticed plenty of limitations that pushed me from engaged on it proper now,” Vega says. “One is the lengthy timeline for improvement. I’ve made so many mates over the previous years that wanted an answer yesterday.”
At MIT, he determined to construct an answer with all of the potential of a mind implant however with out the constraints.
In his final semester at MIT, Vega constructed what he describes as “a lollipop with a bunch of sensors” to check the mouth as a medium for pc interplay. It labored superbly.
“At that time, I referred to as Corten, my co-founder, and mentioned, ‘I feel this has the potential to alter so many lives,’” Vega says. “It may additionally change the way in which people work together with computer systems sooner or later.”
Vega used MIT sources together with the Enterprise Mentoring Service, the MIT I-Corps program, and acquired essential early funding from MIT’s E14 Fund. Augmental was formally born when Vega graduated from MIT on the finish of 2019.
Augmental generates every MouthPad design utilizing a 3D mannequin based mostly on a scan of the consumer’s mouth. The staff then 3-D prints the retainer utilizing dental-grade supplies and provides the digital elements.
With the MouthPad, customers can scroll up, down, left, and proper by sliding their tongue. They will additionally proper click on by doing a sipping gesture and left click on by urgent on their palate. For folks with much less management of their tongue, bites, clenches, and different gestures can be utilized, and folks with extra neck management can use head-tracking to maneuver the cursor on their display.
“Our hope is to create an interface that’s multimodal, so you may select what works for you,” Vega says. “We need to be accommodating to each situation.”
Scaling the MouthPad
A lot of Augmental’s present customers have spinal wire accidents, with some customers unable to maneuver their palms and others unable to maneuver their heads. Avid gamers and programmers have additionally used the system. The corporate’s most frequent customers work together with the MouthPad each day for as much as 9 hours.
“It’s wonderful as a result of it implies that it has actually seamlessly built-in into their lives, and they’re discovering a number of worth in our answer,” Vega says.
Augmental is hoping to realize U.S. Meals and Drug Administration clearance over the subsequent yr to assist customers do issues like management wheelchairs and robotic arms. FDA clearance can even unlock insurance coverage reimbursements for customers, which is able to make the product extra accessible.
Augmental is already engaged on the subsequent model of its system, which is able to reply to whispers and much more refined actions of inner speech organs.
“That’s essential to our early buyer phase as a result of numerous them have misplaced or have impaired lung perform,” Vega says.
Vega can be inspired by progress in AI brokers and the {hardware} that goes with them. Regardless of how the digital world evolves, Vega believes Augmental is usually a instrument that may profit everybody.
“What we hope to supply sooner or later is an always-available, strong, and personal interface to intelligence,” Vega says. “We predict that that is probably the most expressive, wearable, hands-free working system that people have created.”
