A vision to innovate
First commercial project finished in partnership with AT&T Foundry helps guide those with impaired sight
HOUSTONIAN Christine Ha, the visually impaired Season 3 “MasterChef” winner, often relies on friends and her husband to help guide her around. But she prefers more independence in mastering such everyday tasks as reviewing her pantry and looking over bills and receipts.
That’s when she uses Aira glasses.
An Aira user, with the push of a button, is put in touch with a certified agent in California who can view the user’s surroundings through the glasses. These agents track users by global positioning satellite and get a Google street view look at their location in near real time, then offer verbal guidance and even assistance in reading documents, ordering a ride on Uber or picking out clothing.
The Aira glasses for the visually impaired is the first commercial project completed in partnership with the AT&T Foundry for Connected Health housed in the Texas Medical Center Innovation Institute through the TMCx accelerator.
The Foundry offers technical research and expertise for connecting the products that startups and other tech companies make to a variety of networks required to operate them. It is the sixth AT&T foundry but the first in Houston and the first to focus on health care that requires digital services. It opened last June.
With more than 23 million Americans and about 670,000 Texans diagnosed with visual loss in 2015, Ha feels it’s time for the tech world to get involved. She serves as an adviser to California-based Aira.
“It’s a need that should be met immediately,” Ha said.
Over the course of 12 weeks, Foundry engineers in Houston teamed up with Aira to create a
“Network is such a key fundamental part of our service.” Aira CEO and co-founder Suman Kanuganti
secure network for the smart glasses.
“Network is such a key fundamental part of our service,” Aira CEO and co-founder Suman Kanuganti said.
Nadia Morris, head of innovation at the Foundry, said Aira sought ways to reduce the amount of cellular data that users had to pay for to make the glasses work and to protect them from hackers. Morris and her team ultimately developed a way to route data through a private network source, or VPN, that is attached to the glasses’ battery pack.
The VPN also prioritizes service to the glasses in areas, such as a concert, where wireless traffic is congested.
Some of the connectivity testing took place in Houston, but the bulk was done in California and on the East Coast.
Two months ago Aira launched a beta version of its commercial glasses program with 200 participants, who pay $129 to $200 a month for a package deal that includes the glasses, AT&T service and insurance. Kanuganti said Aira is working to bring those costs down.
He said places like the Foundry are invaluable as the internet becomes more prominent in all aspects of life.
One of the next projects Morris is leading will update internal hospital communication systems that largely still rely on technology such as fax machines.
“I want to take hospitals out of their basements and into the cloud,” she said.
Morris also is looking to improve post-hospitalization care through connectivity networks, a growing focus area. At Children’s Health of Dallas, for example, pediatric patients and their parents can now participate in virtual after-care visits with hospital staff via a remote patient-monitoring program.
Perhaps one of the biggest areas of focus for the Foundry, and a personal focus for Morris, is the growing population of older Americans who want to remain independent as long as possible. With a “living lab” that includes a bed, bath tub, kitchen and living room set, Morris and her team test a variety of technologies, from mattress sensors that track sleeping patterns to floorboards that can sense when a person has fallen and alert caregivers.
Erik Halvorsen, director of the Texas Medical Center Innovation Institute, said Morris and her team often serve as mentors to startups they share space with at TMCx.
“They have a level of expertise and perspective we wouldn’t have otherwise,” Halvorsen said.