Tenants and Graduates of Sii
Michael Callahan
While a student at the University of Illinois, Michael Callahan has developed an innovative technology helping to translate neurological signals into speech. His goal is to restore mobility and communication for millions of severely disabled people living in the US. By interfacing near the source of vocal production, he has been able to translate unspoken thought of the mind from intercepted neuronal activity at the vocal cords. When a person has the intent to communicate, the brain sends instructions to the vocal aperture to prepare for the production of speech. For his Senior Design project, Michael and his project partner developed a device to intercept these signals as they are transmitted to control the muscles of the larynx. Using signal processing techniques, he has been able to extract unspoken commands from these signals without the requirement of physical movement. His first achievement, and the focus of his Senior Design Project, was the capability of distinguishing between 'yes' and 'no' which gives a person who cannot speak the ability to choose. In 2005, Michael started a company to commercialize this technology to improve the lives of the severely disabled. He has fostered collaborations with the prestigious Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago and inspired a team of undergraduate and graduate students to work with him in the Technology Entrepreneur Center's Student Entrepreneur Learning Laboratory. Leading a team of engineers and researchers, he is determined to bring this technology to market and make it accessible to those who need it most. Over the past two years, he has increased the size of the recognizable vocabulary and demonstrated the use of the technology to control a wheelchair. This was recently demonstrated at both the Texas Instruments Keynote Address in their TI Developer's Conference as well as in a National Instruments NI-Week Keynote Address in addition to appearing on the internet in various Youtube videos. Michael has been the recipient of numerous awards, including being named the EE-Times Student of the Year and winning the Lemelson Illinois Student Prize for Innovation and Invention, this past year. By the end of the first quarter in 2008, his company, Ambient Corporation, hopes to release the first version of their device to disabled people unable to move or speak.
Patrick Walsh
Patrick Walsh, an undergraduate in Engineering Physics and Economics, got his start in social innovation by working with the U of I chapter of Engineers Without Borders on a student-led village electrification project in a poor, rural Indian village. The project was funded largely by the College of Engineering. Patrick spent his summer months in a village with no running water or electricity, and at night, he was forced to use an oil lantern for light. He found out that a quarter of the world's population -- 1.5 billion people -- were using these inefficient, unhealthy oil lanterns for their night time lighting. Being at the University of Illinois, Patrick realized that LEDs -- light-emitting diodes -- invented by Electrical Engineernig Professor Nick Holonyak, could provide a life-improving source of light for hundreds of millions of people around the world. While taking a course in technology entrepreneurship in the College of Engineering, Patrick was encouraged to write a grant application to the Environmental Protection Agency as his final project in the course. Winning $10,000 to work on his design, Patrick was able to design and specify a means for mass production of an inexpensive, ruggedized version of his idea. Since then, Patrick has raised over fifty thousand dollars in grants and awards to develop solar-powered LED lanterns, from diverse sources including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, and UNESCO. After successful on-site market research in rural Indian villages, where he sold prototypes directly to villagers, Patrick formed a company to mass produce the solar-powered lanterns. He graduates in December and plans to continue working full-time on the company.
