NeuroTechX Showcase

NeuroTechX Showcases
Season 1: Industry and Academia, synergies and market

Welcome to the third event of the series, focused around the theme of industrial and academic synergistic work.
Canada and in specific Toronto's ecosystem are thriving with new neurotechnological initiatives, products and know how
In this third episode I have the pleasure to speak with three leaders in the realm of Neurotechnology and Automotive facial recognition, with several projects in their portfolio

Episode 3: Maciej Rudziński (BrainAttach) + Hanna Haponenko & Shanjay Kailayanathan (Axcessiom)

https://brainattach.com
https://axcessiom.ca

Subscription link
https://www.crowdcast.io/e/neurotechx-showcase-3--

Hanna & Shanjay (COO and CEO) will speak about Axcessiom.
Its core philosophy is to believe in the power of technology to adapt in a rapidly-changing world. Currently, Axcessiom is working on designing an Advanced Driver Assistance System that will allow people with disabilities to drive their vehicles safely and effectively. To drive a vehicle, Shanjay uses hand controls to operate primary vehicle functions, i.e. the gas & brakes are controlled by one hand while the steering wheel is controlled by the other. As both hands are in use while driving, it is difficult and sometimes impossible to safely control secondary functions such as turn signals, wipers, and horn. Shanjay and Hanna have been leading a team to develop facial gesture recognition technology, which recognizes a gesture like a smile or wink to turn on functions like the wipers or turn signal

Maciej (CEO) will explain to us what his team at BrainAttach (Warsaw, Poland) is developing in the realm of real-time BCI for gaming.
His product leverages brain power for gaming and teaches gamers where and how we can use mental states in games and why we need to use concepts from dynamical systems for that. His presentation will show real examples and algorithms propositions based on biopsychological theory of personality.
His ground-breaking implementation of behavioral inhibition/activation systems (BIS/BAS model) measures reaction times and arousal states with EEG in an approach-avoid framework

Presenters' profiles
Maciej Rudziński is the CEO of Brainattach, a brain-computer interfaces (BCIs) company from Poland focused on creating an EEG headband enhancing gaming by measuring emotions, engagement, and flow. Their proprietary algorithm for robust and precise emotion measurement in EEG has been tested on more than 400 people and is backed by a US patent and patent-pending approval in Europe. He has been running neuromarketing and data science projects (Business Intelligence, Insurance, etc) for more than 10 years

Hanna spends her time designing simulated driving interfaces and running experiments that test the attentional constraints of driving behavior. Her thesis deals with the finer details of why a human reacts to certain objects and not others in simulated depth space.
At Axcessiom, Hanna is a project designer and operational lead. Hanna mainly deals with the execution of tasks on the technical side of things, but dives into the weeds when necessary for idea generation and realizing scope.
Hanna is most passionate about designing effective human machine interfaces, wrangling and analyzing data to make valuable insights, and exploring ways to increase trust between humans and autonomous vehicles

Shanjay is quadriplegic and drives his vehicle with hand controls; one hand usually controls the gas & brake while the other hand steers. As a result, it is difficult and sometimes impossible for him, and many others in his situation, to use the vehicle's secondary controls, such as turn signals, wipers, and horn. Shanjay, a software developer, met Hanna, a human factors scientist, at a tech conference in 2019. Since then, they’ve banded forces to develop a facial gesture-based driver assistance system that eliminates the use of hands or voice for controlling secondary car functions