When Tomás Vega SM ’19 was 5 years previous, 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 have been shops,” Vega says. “They allowed me to be fluent within the issues I did. I used to be in a position to transcend my limitations in a method, 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 in line with our personal experiences.”
Vega has been utilizing know-how to reinforce 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 faculty, first on the College of California at Berkeley after which at MIT, Vega constructed applied sciences that helped folks with disabilities stay extra independently.
At the moment 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 laptop, smartphone, or pill by way 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 now have an enormous chunk of the mind that’s dedicated to controlling the place of the tongue,” Vega explains. “The tongue contains eight muscular tissues, and many of the muscle fibers are slow-twitch, which suggests they don’t fatigue as shortly. So, I believed why don’t we leverage all of that?”
Folks with spinal twine accidents are already utilizing the MouthPad every single day to work together with their favourite units independently. Considered one of Augmental’s customers, who resides with quadriplegia and finding out math and laptop science in faculty, says the gadget has helped her write math formulation and examine within the library — use instances the place different assistive speech-based units weren’t acceptable.
“She will now take notes in school, she will be able to play video games along with her pals, she will be able to watch films or learn books,” Vega says. “She is extra impartial. Her mother advised us that getting the MouthPad was probably the most important second since her damage.”
That’s the last 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 might be as competent utilizing a telephone or pill as any person utilizing their fingers,” 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 at least one program for grad college, and that was the Media Lab,” Vega says. “I believed it was the one place the place I may do what I needed to do, which is augmenting human skill.”
On the Media Lab, Vega took courses in microfabrication, sign processing, and electronics. He additionally developed wearable units to assist folks entry info on-line, enhance their sleep, and regulate their feelings.
“On the Media Lab, I used to be in a position to 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 in a position to 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 resolution.
“A mind implant has the very best potential for serving to folks sooner or later, however I noticed a lot of limitations that pushed me from engaged on it proper now,” Vega says. “One is the lengthy timeline for growth. I’ve made so many pals 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 laptop interplay. It labored fantastically.
“At that time, I referred to as Corten, my co-founder, and stated, ‘I feel this has the potential to vary so many lives,’” Vega says. “It may additionally change the best way people work together with computer systems sooner or later.”
Vega used MIT assets together with the Venture Mentoring Service, the MIT I-Corps program, and obtained 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 primarily based on a scan of the person’s mouth. The crew then 3-D prints the retainer utilizing dental-grade supplies and provides the digital parts.
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 other people 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 possibly can select what works for you,” Vega says. “We need to be accommodating to each situation.”
Scaling the MouthPad
Lots of Augmental’s present customers have spinal twine accidents, with some customers unable to maneuver their fingers and others unable to maneuver their heads. Avid gamers and programmers have additionally used the gadget. The corporate’s most frequent customers work together with the MouthPad every single day for as much as 9 hours.
“It’s superb 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 resolution,” Vega says.
Augmental is hoping to achieve U.S. Meals and Drug Administration clearance over the following yr to assist customers do issues like management wheelchairs and robotic arms. FDA clearance may even unlock insurance coverage reimbursements for customers, which is able to make the product extra accessible.
Augmental is already engaged on the following model of its system, which is able to reply to whispers and much more refined actions of inside speech organs.
“That’s essential to our early buyer section as a result of a whole lot of them have misplaced or have impaired lung operate,” Vega says.
Vega can also be inspired by progress in AI brokers and the {hardware} that goes with them. Regardless of how the digital world evolves, Vega believes Augmental could be a instrument that may profit everybody.
“What we hope to offer at some point is an always-available, sturdy, and personal interface to intelligence,” Vega says. “We expect that that is probably the most expressive, wearable, hands-free working system that people have created.”
