When Tomás Vega SM ’19 was 5 years outdated, he started to stutter.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 expertise.
“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 method, so I turned obsessive about human augmentation and with the idea of cyborgs. I additionally gained empathy. I believe all of us have empathy, however we apply it based on our personal experiences.”
Vega has been utilizing expertise to reinforce human capabilities ever since. He started programming when he was 12. In highschool, he helped individuals 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 individuals with disabilities dwell extra independently.
Right this moment Vega is the co-founder and CEO of Augmental, a startup deploying expertise that lets individuals with motion impairments seamlessly work together with their private computational gadgets.
Augmental’s first product is the MouthPad, which permits customers to manage their laptop, smartphone, or pill via 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 a giant chunk of the mind that’s dedicated to controlling the place of the tongue,” Vega explains. “The tongue contains eight muscular tissues, and a lot of the muscle fibers are slow-twitch, which suggests they don’t fatigue as rapidly. So, I assumed why don’t we leverage all of that?”
Individuals with spinal wire accidents are already utilizing the MouthPad each day to work together with their favourite gadgets independently. One in every 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 gadgets weren’t applicable.
“She will be able to now take notes in school, she will be able to play video games along with her mates, she will be able to watch motion pictures 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 harm.”
That’s the last word purpose of Augmental: to enhance the accessibility of applied sciences which have change into an integral a part of our lives.
“We hope that an individual with a extreme impairment could be as competent utilizing a cellphone or pill as anyone utilizing their fingers,” Vega says.
Making computer systems extra accessible
In 2012, as a first-year pupil at UC Berkeley, Vega met his eventual Augmental co-founder, Corten Singer. That yr, he advised Singer he was decided to hitch the Media Lab as a graduate pupil, 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 assumed it was the one place the place I might do what I wished to do, which is augmenting human means.”
On the Media Lab, Vega took lessons in microfabrication, sign processing, and electronics. He additionally developed wearable gadgets to assist individuals entry info 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 worry.”
Vega had gravitated towards the concept of a brain-machine interface, however an internship at Neuralink made him search out a unique resolution.
“A mind implant has the best potential for serving to individuals 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 growth. 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 restrictions.
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 known as Corten, my co-founder, and mentioned, ‘I believe this has the potential to alter so many lives,’” Vega says. “It might additionally change the way in which people work together with computer systems sooner or later.”
Vega used MIT assets together with the Enterprise 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 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 parts.
With the MouthPad, customers can scroll up, down, left, and proper by sliding their tongue. They’ll additionally proper click on by doing a sipping gesture and left click on by urgent on their palate. For individuals 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 screen.
“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 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 each day for as much as 9 hours.
“It’s superb as a result of it signifies that it has actually seamlessly built-in into their lives, and they’re discovering a lot 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 will 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 loads 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 generally is a device that may profit everybody.
“What we hope to supply someday 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.”
