Transcript
Dave Gardy: Dave Gardy here at the M Enabling summit in Arlington, VA. We're at the Control Bionics booth which makes something called the NeuroNode. I'm here with Rob Wong who is CEO of Control Bionics here. Hey Rob, it's great to see you again.
Rob Wong: Thanks very much, lovely to be here.
Now today we're talking about this NeuroNode which is here in your backdrop here at the show. Fascinating, give us an overview of what the NeuroNode does.
Well, the NeuroNode is a emg-base switch which uses the very, very fine muscles in your body to pick up communication signals. So it came out of the biofeedback industry. We're actually using it as a communication tool to be able to allow people who have severe disabilities to be able to communicate with a computer or Facebook or any means like that.
Some of these disabilities, ALS, give us an example of them.
Yeah, so, certainly conditions like ALS or SMA. We had a very young lady, 7-year old recently, who had no over movement but a little bit of movement in her finger, and we're able to get her to be able to use the technology and within a few minutes she was able to spell her name and then within a couple of minutes after that she was able to type her first sentence. And her first sentence unbelievably was, 'Can I have a baby sister and a puppy?'
That's excellent. So some of the other applications that you're finding here at the show, what are some of the questions people are coming up from the M Enabling audience and asking?
Well, I think it's most people are very interested to see it's sort of a new technology. The traditional technology has always been eye-gaze technology, and they're very interested to find out why are product is different. And certainly from a fatigue point of view, we're finding we have certainly have a lot to offer in terms of the conditions when your eyes don't really work that well, our technology works really well.
Excellent. Alright you're gonna have an edit open here because I had my question, and I just went blank. Hey Lee, how ya doing buddy? Look at that, that's Darren, Darren Lee.
Now would you prefer me to look at you or look at.
No, you're looking at me. Oh, I know what I was gonna ask about, about you've had a lot of announcements lately, and I was gonna Pitch@Palace or something like that. So, you want to go back to, were you at one shot when you were doing that? Okay, so go back to me going like this, or both of us and then go back to him. Three, two, one. So, you've had a lot of announcements lately and some big news in the company, can you give us an overview of what's going on?
Yeah, we're an Australian-based company, but we have a U.S. company here, but we had the opportunity to go to England to be part of Prince Andrew's Pitch@Palace. And that's where all of the Commonwealth countries come together and pitch for innovative ideas that help humanity. And fortunately out of 42 countries, we won the event. So, fantastic effort for us as a young startup.
Yeah, and congratulations. Now you're expanding continent to continent, you have a course started in Australia. You have now a pretty strong U.S. presence. What's next?
Well, what's next, we're just about to complete a As of July, I'll be off to Europe to start to look at the European market, and also later this year, Canada. So, we're sort of going global very quickly.
Excellent. Anything else coming up in the future?
Yeah, there's lots of things in terms of the product pipeline that we're doing. We're doing some very interesting stuff in terms of wheelchair mobility. We think there's a great future in that for our technology in terms of making it easier for people to get around using our technology as opposed to joystick.
How's the M Enabling Summit been for you?
Yeah, it's been great. There's an excellent quality of people here who obviously have a diverse range of issues handling the disability market but certainly been very useful for us in terms of networking and very interesting to be in D.C. I think it's a great spot to be to hold the event here and certainly been very productive for us.
People want to find out more about Control Bionics, where should they go on the web?
Yeah, our website is controlbionics.com and certainly if you want to have a look at our product, the NeuroNode, it's featured fairly heavily in there but certainly worth a look.
Company is Control Bionics, controlbionics.com, makes the NeuroNode, and I've been talking with Rob Wong, who is the CEO. Rob, thanks for joining us here at the M Enabling Summit in Arlington, VA. Stay tuned for more.
