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Speakers and Discussion Leaders
Panel Discussion
Past Speakers
Call for Speakers

Speakers and Discussion Leaders

(listed in alphabetical order, by speaker’s company name)

Science of Skin for Wearable Applications
Alison Chulla
Sr. Global Applications Engineer
3M

Current, Emerging, and Future Uses of Devices in Pharmaceutical Research and Development
Michael Kremliovsky, PhD
Sr. Director, Medical Devices and eHealth
Bayer

Flexible Electronics, Filters, and Packaging Solutions for Wearable Devices
Daniel de Sa Pereira, PhD
Sales Manager
Buhler

Advanced Sensors and Materials for Wearable Applications
Nelly Soudakova
General Manager
Dexerials America

Medtech Industrial Campus for Wearable Sensors and Devices
Laurent Jamet
Business Development
Doliam

Ultra-Thin Flexible Optical Filters for Wearable Devices
Hooman Banaei, PhD
CEO
Everix Optical Filters

Wearable Technologies and the Rise of Digital Health Management
Tess Skyrme, PhD
Technology Analyst
IDTechEx

Clinically Accurate, Self-Powered, Smart Insoles with Machine Learning for Medical and Military Applications
Robert Andosca, PhD
President and CEO
INVIZA Health

Health System Perspective on Engagement and Applicability of Wearables with Existing EMRs
Carey Ross
Regional Director
Kaiser Permanente

Design and Fabrication of Wearable and Microfluidic Device Prototypes
Dan Nawrocki
Director of Business and Technical Development
Kayaku Advanced Materials

Wearable Sensors and Technologies for Surgical Applications
Janani Resienauer, MD
Vice Chair, Innovation, Department of Surgery
Mayo Clinic

Combining Wearables and Implantables for Cardiac Arrhythmia and Heart Failure Sensing
Shantanu Sarkar, PhD
Sr. Distinguished Scientist and Technical Fellow
Medtronic

Medical Devices for Heart Health and Emerging Role for Wearables
Ranndy Kellogg
CEO
Omron Healthcare

Emerging Technologies and Applications for Smart Rings
Shyamal Patel, PhD
Head of Science
Oura Health

Neuromorphic Analog Signal Processors for Always-On, Low-Power Wearable Devices
Rachid Guerchouche, PhD
Product Manager, Wearables and Healthcare
Polyn Technology

Accelerated FEM Multiphysics Simulations for Micro-Sized Systems and Components
Nikola Strah
VP of Sales
Quanscient

Wearable Noninvasive Fluid Flow Monitoring for Hydrocephalus Patients
Chad Webb, PhD
CTO
Rhaeos

Elastomeric Dot Connector for Wearable Device Solutions
Mutsuhito Taguchi
Product Business Unit Manager, GSP
Sekisui Polymatech

Optometry, Predictive Analytics, and Smart Socks to Reduce Risk of Falls
Davide Vigano
CEO and Co-Founder
Sensoria

Microfabrication Processes for High-Volume Fabrication of Wearable Devices
Carlos Stahr
Business Development Manager
Silex Microsystems

Building Miniature, Low-Power, Low-Cost Portable Medical Devices with Bluetooth
Brian Blum
Senior Product Marketing Manager
Silicon Labs

Disrupting Healthcare Using Deep Data and Remote Monitoring
Michael Snyder, PhD
Professor
Stanford University

Skin-Inspired Sensors for Wearables and Implantables
Zhenan Bao, PhD
Professor
Stanford University

Integration of Wearable Devices in Digital Health Platforms
Kenzie Carlson
Manager, Digital Strategy
Takeda Pharmaceuticals

Eliminating Amputations in Diabetes with Wearable Devices and Remote Health Monitoring
David Armstrong, PhD
Professor of Surgery
University of Southern California

3D-Printable Conductive Inks for Medical Wearables
Daeha Joung, PhD
Assistant Professor
Virginia Commonwealth University

Wearables in Healthcare: Market Overview and Future Challenges
Clyde Midelet, PhD
Market and Technology Analyst
Yole Intelligence, part of Yole Group


Past Speakers

Many thanks to our speakers from Medical Wearables 2022.

Wearables for Monitoring and Treatment of Cardiovascular Diseases
Nick West, MD
Chief Medical Officer
Abbott

Wearables for Combatting Sleep Issues: An Overview of Emerging Technologies and Solutions
Kathryn Fantauzzi
CEO and Co-Founder
Apollo Neuro

Wearables, AI, and the Future of Chronic Pain Care
Don Chennavasin
Managing Director, Digital Ventures and Neuromodulation
Boston Scientific

Wearable BCI Platform for Patients with Severe Communication Disabilities
Andreas Forsland
CEO
Cognixion

Building Machine Learning Solutions for Health and Wearables
Zach Shelby
CEO
Edge Impulse

A Check Engine Light for Health: Creating the Future of Wearables and Beyond
Omid Toloui
Vice President, Innovation
Elevance Health (formerly Anthem)

Ultra-Thin Optical Filters for Wearable Devices
Hooman Banaei, PhD
CEO
Everix Optical Filters

Wireless Soft Scalp Electronics for Brain-Machine Interfaces
Hong Yeo, PhD
Associate Professor
Georgia Institute of Technology

Empowering Neuroplasticity with a Wearable Portable Neuromodulation Stimulator for Balance and Gait Deficits
Dane Andreeff
CEO and Co-Founder
Helius Medical Technologies

Life After Fitness Trackers: Meta-Trends Driving Wearable Technology Adoption
Tess Skyrme
Technology Analyst
IDTechEx

Sensorized, Self-Charging, Smart Shoe Insoles for Emerging Digital Health Applications
Robert Andosca, PhD
President and CEO
INVIZA Health

Protective Conformal Coatings for Wearables and Medical Devices
Daniel Nawrocki
Director of Business and Technical Development
Kayaku Advanced Materials

Wearables for Surgery Applications: Emerging Technologies and Use Cases
Janani Resienauer, MD
Vice Chair, Innovation, Department of Surgery
Mayo Clinic

Wearables for Patient Monitoring: Emerging Technologies, Applications, and Business Models
Jason Case
Vice President R&D
Medtronic

Smart Fabrics for Medical Wearables Applications
Venk Varadan
CEO and Co-Founder
Nanowear

Wearables for Sleep Applications: Past, Present, and Future
Jonathan Berent
CEO
NextSense

Nitric Oxide as a New Health Marker in Wearable Devices
Evan Peikon
Chief Physiologist
NNOXX

Lab-on-a-Patch: Next-Generation Wearables with DNA-Based Sensors
Peter Vranes
CEO
Nutromics

Smart Fabrics for Motion Capture in Real-World Environments
Asimina Kiourti, PhD
Associate Professor
Ohio State University

Measuring Sleep Quality with Wearables: Emerging Technologies and Solutions
Shyamal Patel
Head of Science
Oura Health

MEMS and Micro Devices Fabrication for Medical Wearables
Paul Bekkers
Business Development Manager
Philips, MEMS Foundry

Software Tools for Analyzing and Developing Technical Requirements for Wearables
Jordan Kyriakidis
CEO
QRA

Advancing Care for Hydrocephalus Patients with Wearable Noninvasive Fluid Flow Monitoring
Chad Webb, PhD
CTO
Rhaeos

A Movie vs. a Snapshot: Leveraging Apple Watch Data for Parkinson's Care
Brian Pepin
CEO
Rune Labs

MEMS-on-CMOS Process Technology for Wearable Devices and Components
Arjun Kumar Kantimahanti
Sr. Vice President of Technology Development
SilTerra

Wearable Device for Neonatal Blood Pressure Monitoring
Anoop Rao, MD
Clinical Assistant Professor
Stanford University School of Medicine

Precise Lapping and Polishing for Medical Wearables Fabrication
Chisato Maeda
Sales Manager
TDC Corporation

Fabrication Technologies for Medical Wearables and BioMEMS Devices
Reza Mahmoodian
Business Development Manager
ULVAC Technologies

Wearables to Empower Users to Take Greater Responsibility for Their Health and Care
Harjeevan Kang
Medical Student
University of Birmingham

Unawareables: Miniaturized Wearable Sensors for Unobtrusive Multi-Modal Sensing
Patrick Mercier, PhD
Associate Professor
University of California, San Diego

Air Microfluidics for Soft Robotic Medical Wearables
Carolyn Ren, PhD
Professor
University of Waterloo

Monitoring Sleep Disorders at Home with Wearable Electrode Arrays
Ziv Peremen, PhD
CTO
X-trodes

Many thanks to our speakers from Medical Wearables 2021.

The Science of Skin and Remote Patient Wearable Devices
Audrey Sherman
Division Scientist
3M

Medical Wearables Investments and M&A Trends
Piergiulio (PJ) Lauriano
Partner
Alira Health

Direct Patterning of Multi-Material Atomic Layer Deposition for Fabrication of Wearable Devices
Maksym Plakhotnyuk
CEO
Atlant 3D Nanosystems

Transforming Medical Wearable Devices into Connected Solutions
Itai Weissman
Vice President Product
BioT Medical

Micro 3D Printing for Wearable Device Applications
John Kawola
CEO
Boston Micro Fabrication

Wearable and Implantable Devices for Cardiac Arrhythmia Monitoring
Brandon Searle
Director Rhythm Commercial Execution
Boston Scientific

Embracing the Era of Smart Wearables for Streaming Healthcare In Place
Janet Wang-Roveda
Director
C2SHIP

Wearable Neuromodulation Therapies for Treating Chronic Diseases
Renee Ryan
CEO
Cala Health

Smart Wearable Devices in Cardiovascular Care: Where We Are and How to Move Forward
Mo Elshazly, MD
Cardiac Electrophysiologist
Cleveland Clinic, Heart and Vascular Institute

Technology Platforms for Wearables
Gordon Harling
President and CEO
CMC Microsystems

Five Key Considerations for Cardio Wearables
Tony Das, MD
Medical Director
Connected Cardiovascular Care Associates

Silicone Skin Contact Solutions for Smart Wearables
Eric Reynolds
Technical Sales and Development Manager
DuPont Liveo

Evaluation of Polymer Dry Electrodes for Cardiac Long-Term Monitoring and Arrhythmias Detection
Christian Hofmann
Group Manager, Medical Sensors Systems
Fraunhofer IIS

Multimodal, Modular and Mobile Sensor System for Improved Patient Monitoring
Michael Scholles
Head of Project Hub MEOS
Fraunhofer IPMS

Wearable Companion Technologies for Neuromodulation Devices
Firat Yazicioglu
VP and Head of Translation and Engineering
Galvani Bioelectronics

Wearable Respiration Monitors for In-Patients
Juha Virtanen
Principal Engineer, Wearable Sensors
GE Healthcare

Wearables for Screening and Management of Atrial Fibrillation
David Duncker
Deputy Head of HHC
Hannover Medical School

Funding Opportunities at BARDA for Digital Health Monitoring and Diagnostics
Dev Mittar
Health Scientist/Program Officer
HHS / BARDA

Integrated Photonics Engineering and Materials Solutions for Medical Wearables
Adi Sethi
Sales Account Manager
Hitachi High-Tech America

Wearables for Diabetes Management: From Current CGM Solutions to Non-Invasive Glucose Monitoring
James Hayward
Principal Technology Analyst
IDTechEx

Wearable Technologies for Extended Artificial Organs
Geert Langereis, PhD
Program Manager, Health Research
Imec

Self-Charging, Highly Accurate Insole-Based Health Trackers for Medical Grade Applications
Robert Andosca
President and CEO
INVIZA HEALTH

AI-Powered Automated and Wearable Ultrasound Scanner for Accessible and Personalized Breast Health Monitoring
Maryam Ziaei
CEO and Founder
iSono Health

Medical Wearables Startups and Ecosystem in Korea
Sewon Jung
Manager, International Investment & Strategic Partnerships
KOTRA

Wearables Product Development: From Hospital Settings to Home Based Applications
Mark Wehde
Chair, Mayo Clinic Engineering
Mayo Clinic

Top Medical Wearables Companies to Watch
Paul Grand
CEO
MedTech Innovator

High Power Batteries for Medical Wearables
Janet Hur
CEO
Millibatt

Increasing the Lifespan of Medical Wearables with Nanocoatings
Evan Vickers, PhD
Lead Material Scientist
NanoFlowX

Powering the Discovery of New Science of Health
Shyamal Patel
Head of Science
Oura Health

MEMS and Micro Devices Fabrication for Medical Wearables
Paul Bekkers
Business Development Manager
Philips Innovation Services

Enabling the Next Generation of Non-Invasive Digital Health Monitoring
Roozbeh Parsa
Sr. Vice President Commercial
Rockley Photonics

Piezo-PZT Fabrication for Wearable Sensors and Actuators
Niklas Svedin
Vice President Engineering
Silex Microsystems

MEMS-on-CMOS Process Technology for Wearable Devices and Components
Arjun Kumar Kantimahanti
Sr. Vice President of Technology Development
SilTerra

Wearables for Behavioral Medicine: Emerging Technologies and Applications
Walter Greenleaf
Professor
Stanford University

Healthcare Applications for Consumer Wearables: User Experience and HMI Considerations
Lisa Cooper
Director, UX Strategies
Strategy Analytics

Fabrication Techniques for Medical Sensors and Micro-Devices
Collin Twanow
Director of Technology
Teledyne

Optimal Outcomes with Innovative Remote Recovery and Musculoskeletal Monitoring
Colleen Gray
CEO
TracPatch

AI-Enabled Multimode HMI Sensing for Next-Generation Wearables
Mo Maghsoudnia
Founder and CEO
UltraSense

Face Mask Point-of-Care Detection of COVID-19
Peter Nguyen, PhD
Research Scientist
Wyss Institute

Bridging Medical Challenges and Wearables Adoption in the Transforming Healthcare Sector
Jerome Mouly
Team Lead Analyst
Yole Developpement

Wearable and Non-Wearable Solutions for Sleep Apnea
Rachel Chase
CEO
Zennea

Panel Discussion
Extending the Patient Journey: The Vital Role Wearables Play in Improving Healthcare Outcomes

(listed in alphabetical order, by panelist’s company name)

Addie Harris
Global R&D Leader Robotics
DePuy Synthes

Marga Ortigas-Wedekind
Chief Commercial Strategy Officer
Fogarty Innovation

Joe Gordon
Vice President Innovation
Ximedica

Kevin Sheth
Vice Chair for Clinical Research / Co-Founder
Yale University / Alva Health

Many thanks to our speakers from Medical Wearables 2020.

Medical Wearables and Remote Patient Monitoring
Omid Toloui
Vice President of Innovation
Anthem

Wearable Devices for Remote Patient Data Collection in Pharmaceutical R&D Applications
Gerard Nahum, MD, Vice President of Research and Development
Michael Kremliovsky, PhD, Sr. Director of Medical Devices and eHealth
Bayer Pharmaceuticals

Micro-Precision 3D Printing for Medical Wearables Applications
Jason Bassi
Director of Sales
BMF

How Medical Wearables Will Deliver Value in Healthcare Digital Ecosystems
Alex Dukic
Vice President R&D, Digital Ventures
Boston Scientific

Wearables for Vascular Health: Beyond Traditional Blood Pressure
Ahmad Qasem, PhD
Senior Director of Research
CardieX

Clinical Trial Findings: Long Term Durability of Medical Tapes and Adhesives
Ronald Horwitz, PhD
Vice President Quality and R&D
CCT

Liquid Crystal Polymers for Miniaturization of Wearable Device
Phil Wilson
Program Director for Medical Devices
Celanese

Smart Wearable Devices in Cardiovascular Care: Where We Are and How to Move Forward
Mohamed (Mo) Elshazly
Cardiac Electrophysiologist
Cleveland Clinic, Heart and Vascular Institute

Funding Opportunities at BARDA for Digital Health Monitoring and Diagnostics
Dev Mittar
Health Scientist/Program Officer
Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) / BARDA

Automated Cloud-Based Design Generation of ASICs for Wearable Sensors
Jeff DiCorpo
SVP Business Development
EFabless

Designing Sensors for Consumer Wearables: Reliability, Power, and Performance Considerations
Pieris Berreitter
Director of Hardware Engineering
Fitbit

From Idea to Market – Mobile Gas Sensing
Fritz Herrmann
Technical Sales Manager
Fraunhofer IPMS

System Integration for Medical Wearables: From MEMS to Mobile Point-of-Care Diagnostics
Michael Scholles, PhD
Head of Project Hub MEOS
Fraunhofer IPMS

Wearable Companion Technologies for Neuromodulation Devices
Firat Yazicioglu
VP and Head of Translation and Engineering
Galvani Bioelectronics

Wearable Respiration monitors for In-Patients
Juha Virtanen
Principal Engineer, Wearable Sensors
GE Healthcare

Sensors for Volatiles for Medical Applications
Radislav Potyrailo, PhD
Principal Scientist
GE Research

Building Products Based on Science: A Cardiologist’s Perspective
Kapil Parakh, MD, PhD
Medical Lead, Google Fit
Google

Wearable Technologies for the Deaf and Hard of Hearing
Sagar Savla
Product Manager
Google

Face Mask Point-of-Care Detection of COVID-19
Peter Nguyen
Research Scientist
Harvard University

Human Centric Wearables for Personalized Care
Thiru Kanagasabapathi
Sr. Project Manager
Holst Center

Managing Chronic Diseases and Extreme WorkEnvironments with Wearable Devices
Jonas Weiss, PhD
Senior Researcher
IBM Research

Wearables for Diabetes Management: From Current CGM Solutions to Non-Invasive Glucose Monitoring
James Hayward
Principal Technology Analyst
IDTechEx

High-Volume Manufacturing of Printed Electronics for Medical Wearables
Florian Ullrich
Business Developer
InnovationLab

Wearable Technologies for Enabling Patient Engagement and Clinical Research
Paul Burton, MD
Chief Global Medical Affairs Officer
Janssen Pharmaceuticals

Wearables and Digital Health in Preventive Cardiology
Seth Martin, MD
Associate Professor
Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine

COVID Silver Lining: Accelerating From Virtual Doctor Visits to Wearables for Health Monitoring
John Mattison, MD
CMIO and Assistant Medical Director Emeritus
Kaiser Permanente

Assessing the Risk of Falls in Older Adults with Inertial Sensors and Machine Learning
Barry Greene
CTO
Kinesis Health Technologies

A Wearable-Agnostic IoT Platform: From Sensors to Health Solutions
Franco du Preez, PhD
Co-Founder and Chief Science Officer
LifeQ

Accurate and Reliable Skin Thermometry for Wearables
Joris Roels
Marketing Manager Temperature Sensors
Melexis

Powering a Trillion Smart and Wearable Devices
Janet Hur
CEO
Millibatt

Smart Contact Lenses: How Augmented Reality Can Offer a Brighter Future for the Visually Impaired
Mike Wiemer
CTO and Vice President Engineering
Mojo Vision

Force-Sensing Solutions for Wearable Devices
Steve Pratt
Sr. Director, Business Development
NextInput

Self-Powered Wearable Sensors for Health Monitoring
Veena Misra, PhD
Professor and Director of ERC ASSIST
North Carolina State University

Soft Skin-Interfaced Systems with Biochemical Sensing Capabilities
Roozbeh Ghaffari, PhD
Associate Professor
Northwestern University

Wearable Sensors for COVID-19: Gaps and Opportunities
Shuai "Steve" Xu
Assistant Professor
Northwestern University

Practical MEMS Production and Micro Assembly Expertise for Wearables
Paul Bekkers
Business Development Manager
Philips Innovation Services

Bridging the Medical and Consumer Wearables Chasm: Commercial, Technology, and Investment Perspectives
Sean Cheng, PhD
Investment Manager
Philips Ventures

Wearable Technologies for the Management of Degenerative Neurological Conditions
John Ralston, PhD
Founder and CEO
Protxx

Smartwatch Solutions for Cardiac Rehabilitation and Blood Pressure Applications
Swapnil Vinod
Senior Product Manager, Digital Health & Wearables
Samsung Electronics

MoneyBall Medicine, Medical Wearables, and the Data-Driven Healthcare Market
Harry Glorikian
General Partner
Scientia Funds

Breaking Through the MEMS Barrier
Carlos Stahr
Business Development
Silex Microsystems

CMOS MEMS Process Technologies for Wearable Devices
Arjun Kumar Kantimahanti
Sr. Vice President of Technology Development
SilTerra

Wearable Technologies for Patients, Care Teams, and Employers in the COVID-19 Environment
Anders Strömberg
Director, Head of Wearable Platform Division
Sony

Medical Wearables: Emerging Technologies, Applications, and Venture Capital Perspective
Anil Achyuta
Investment Director
TDK Ventures

Micro-Fabrication Solutions for Smart Wearable Devices
Stephane Martel
Director of the Project Management Office
Teledyne Micralyne

Cuffless Blood Pressure Monitoring: Challenges and Opportunities
Roozbeh Jafari, PhD
Professor
Texas A&M University

Optimal Outcomes with Innovative Remote Recovery and Musculoskeletal Monitoring
Colleen Gray
CEO
TracPatch

Iontronic Devices for Medical Wearables Applications
Shiming Zhang, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Hong Kong

Smartwatch-Brain Interface Architectures for Neurocognitive Stress
Rose Faghih, PhD
Assistant Professor
University of Houston

Wearables and Machine Learning: Finally Making an Impact on Healthcare
Ryan Kraudel
VP Marketing
Valencell

Sensor Technologies for Medical Wearables and Personal Medical Devices
Ulrich Bretthauer, PhD
Product Marketing Manager Medical
X-FAB Group

Electrochemical Biosensors in Consumer and Medical Wearables
James Powers
Business Development
Zimmer and Peacock

Many thanks to our speakers from Medical Wearables 2019.

CMUTs and PMUTs for Disruptive Medical Wearable Devices
Paul Bekkers, MSc.
Business Development Manager
Philips Innovation Services, MEMS and Micro Devices

Piezo-electric crystals are currently still the traditional benchmark technology for medical ultrasound devices. This technology will run out of steam in the near future when medical ultrasound applications need smaller form factors, larger arrays, larger bandwidths, and integration with driver circuitry for 3D imaging. Capacitive and piezoelectric micro-machined ultrasonic transducers (CMUTs and PMUTs) will meet these new needs. These technologies will enable disruptive medical wearables applications and add ultrasound “eyes” to personal health devices. In this presentation, a brief comparison will show the advantages of CMUT and PMUT transducers, as well as existing technology challenges and limitations. Additionally, application examples will highlight the pros and cons of applying CMUTs and PMUTs to various business cases. We will also provide an overview of the recent academic developments and continuing research on these transducer technologies. Additionally, the talk will include a concise overview on the companies developing and marketing CMUT and PMUT technologies, as well as products and devices expected to be commercializing and coming to the market in the near future.

Biography: Paul Bekkers joined Philips Innovation Services in 2016 after a career in a large technology consultancy firm. He is part of the Philips MEMS and Micro Devices business development team, mainly responsible for the business development for the large set of microfabrication capabilities of the Philips MEMS Foundry. His primary focus is the marketing of the Philips CMUT technology. With a strong Applied Physics education (and MEMS specialization), having lead teams and having provided technology consultancy to a wide range of companies and institutes, he now puts his enthusiasm and innovative technology mindset to work to get the world acquainted with the awesome work being done at the Philips MEMS Foundry.


Medical Wearables and Machine Learning: Emerging Trends and Clinical Applications
Uli Chettipally, MD, MPH
Chief Technology Officer, CREST Network
Kaiser Permanente

Medical wearable technology has been growing fast for the past 10 years. It can now measure, track, store, and analyze “medical grade” physiologic data and has the potential to be used in clinical settings. For the first time in human history, it is now possible to track many parameters of the human body. We can now use data collected by medical wearables for preventing, diagnosing and treating diseases. However, the gap in current technologies and actual clinical practice is wide. This talk will discuss the "Three Use Rules" and their applicability in bridging the gap between technology and clinical practice. The shifting business model of healthcare from volume-based care to value-based care has made it critical to understand the clinical utility. Machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are transforming many industries, and healthcare has perhaps the greatest potential to benefit. In particular, AI based tools are changing the utility of wearables to decrease the burden on physicians, improve the quality of life for patients, and decrease the cost for payers.

Biography: Dr. Uli Chettipally, MD, MPH, is a physician, researcher, author, and innovator. He is passionate about delivering artificial intelligence-enabled solutions to the physicians to improve patient outcomes. As the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of CREST Network at Kaiser Permanente, he has designed, developed, and implemented a region-wide clinical decision support platform to deliver real-time predictive analytics at the point of care. Uli received the "Pioneer" award for Innovation from Kaiser Permanente for this work. He also received the Morris F. Collin award for his research from The Permanente Medical Group. Uli’s other roles include President, Society of Physician Entrepreneurs, San Francisco Bay Area chapter; Member, Board of Directors, San Mateo County Medical Association; Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine, University of California, San Francisco. He has recently published a book, “Punish the Machine! The Promise of Artificial Intelligence in Healthcare”. Uli can be reached via LinkedIn or via his website at www.InnovatorMD.com


Smart Sensing for Humans: From Smartwatch to Smarter Watch
Mayank Goel, PhD
Assistant Professor
Carnegie Mellon University

Personal wearable fitness devices (such as Fitbit and Apple Watch) can go beyond providing information such as the number of steps taken, hours spent exercising, and a coarse measure of sleep quality. Though highly valued by the user, rough activity estimates fail to provide medically-actionable information. We are investigating two wearable form factors: smartwatches and eyeglasses to detect a user’s behavior, their physiology, and how this information can be clinically relevant. Because wearables are already sensor-laden, we are building machine learning models that leverage the onboard sensors to enable immediate deployability and impact. We are also evaluating the efficacy of our machine learning models to identify users suffering from depression, fatigue, anxiety, ADHD, and other conditions. Moreover, given that wearables are continually evolving, we are investigating which new form factors and capabilities can make them smarter and more clinically useful. For example, we are exploring ways to measure the wearer’s diet and how their body reacts to what they eat. Ultimately, we aim to develop a suite of wearables that holistically understand the wearer’s behavior, physiology, and the relation between the two. This talk will present our latest results and insights, as well as an overview and highlights of work conducted by other leading research groups in our field.

Biography: Dr. Mayank Goel is an Assistant Professor at the Institute for Software Research (ISR) and the Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII) at the School of Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon University. He leads the Smart Sensing for Humans (Smash) Lab at CMU and focuses on designing new sensing systems using sensors and devices that are already present in a user's environment. The lab aims to solve hard problems in various domains, including health sensing, technologies for global development, and novel interactive systems. Some of Mayank’s inventions are currently deployed in clinics around the world and are used by several thousand patients every month. Many of these technologies are currently going through regulatory approvals. Mayank received his PhD in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Washington in 2016.


How Virtual and Augmented Reality Technology Is Transforming Healthcare
Walter Greenleaf, PhD
Research Neuroscientist, Medical Product Developer
Stanford University, Virtual Human Interaction Lab

This talk provides an overview of the many ways wearable platforms, working in concert with virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) technologies, will profoundly impact healthcare. Combined with wearable systems, VR and AR-enabled platforms can shift the locus of clinical care from the hospital and the clinic to the home and the workplace and, via improved analytics, provide tools and systems that enable personalized medicine. We know from decades of clinical research that VR/AR technologies can provide breakthrough solutions that address the most difficult problems in healthcare such as mood disorders, anxiety, depression, PTSD, addictions, autism, cognitive aging, stroke recovery, and physical rehabilitation, to name just a few. Individualized health and wellness protocols, as well as treatment plans can be provided via portable systems that integrate wearable sensors, VR, AR, and AI technologies to effectively promote adherence and encourage healthy lifestyles. As the cost of healthcare rises, wearable systems integrated with VR and AR technologies will enable effective telemedicine platforms to reduce costs of care delivery and improve clinical efficiency.

Biography: Dr. Walter Greenleaf is a research neuroscientist and medical product developer working at Stanford University. Walter is known internationally as an early pioneer in digital medicine and virtual reality (VR) technology. With over three decades of research and product development experience in the field of medical virtual reality technology, Walter is considered a leading authority in the field. Walter is currently a Distinguished Visiting Scholar at Stanford University’s Virtual Human Interaction Lab, the Director of Technology Strategy at the University of Colorado National Mental Health Innovation Center, and Member of the Board of Directors for Brainstorm: The Stanford Laboratory for Brain Health Innovation and Entrepreneurship. In addition to his research at Stanford University, Walter is Senior Vice President of Strategic and Corporate Affairs to MindMaze and Chief Science Advisor to Pear Therapeutics. He is a VR technology and neuroscience advisor to several early-stage medical product companies and is a co-founder of Cognitive Leap.


Sensor Fusion and Medical Wearables: Emerging and Future Technology Trends
Steve Groothuis
Chief Technology Officer
Samtec Microelectronics

The consumer wearables market is extremely competitive, with brands constantly looking for the best ways to improve the durability and usability of its products. The same can be said for companies producing medical wearables, particularly as the market is expected to reach an astonishing $14.4 billion by 2022. The advancements of sensor technologies and microfabrication processes for medical wearables have enabled the design and fabrication of components with unique functionalities and applications. With advanced process integration of the microfabricated devices, miniaturization and device packaging are improved. Those sensors have been and will continue to be incorporated into medical wearables in the near future. ECG, PPG, and EMG sensors have revolutionized currently available wearable products. However, using sensors in combination with each other (i.e. sensor fusion) will dominate future medical wearables. Next-generation medical wearables will strive to incorporate more patient vital signs to diagnose an increasingly wider range of conditions, while striving for the same degree of comfort and accuracy that current wearables bring. This talk will provide an overview of medical wearable technologies, examples of current and future sensors, and their resulting enhancements to the world of medical wearables. Key takeaways will include: understanding the power of leverage with sensor fusion, learn about out-of-the-box sensor engineering, as well as what are new opportunities and capabilities.

Biography: Steven Groothuis is the Chief Technology Officer at Samtec Microelectronics in Colorado Springs and maintains the package technology and strategic roadmaps. He is involved in integrated circuit, MEMS, sensor, optical, and photonics package technology pathfinding. He has dealt with products in the autonomous vehicles, biomedical, optical/photonics, MEMS and sensors, and microelectronics arenas. Prior to joining Samtec, he was a DMTS at Micron Technology providing technology advancements on package development, pathfinding, and wafer- and package-related simulations. He also worked at ANSYS as a Multiphysics Industry Specialist on various electronics packaging and MEMS simulation initiatives. He started his career as a package technologist on up to the Advanced Semiconductor Packaging Lab Manager at Texas Instruments. Mr. Groothuis received his BS Physics from Michigan State University and MS Physics from University of Texas at Dallas. He is an IEEE Sr. Member, has coauthored over 50 papers, and holds 14 US patents.


Medical Wearables and 5G: Enabling the Transformation of Healthcare Delivery
Justin McGloin
Sr. Director, Engineering
Qualcomm

5G promises to revolutionize healthcare through significant advances in data speed, capacity, and reliability. 5G also offers the ability to connect a wide swath of healthcare devices and services in real-time to deliver personalized, convenient, and affordable healthcare. Through its ability to handle high volumes of real-time data, patients can be monitored at home as easily as in a clinic or hospital. Doctors will have access to up-to-the-second patient data at their fingertips, regardless of their relative locations. Around the clock monitoring of patient vitals using medical wearables, coupled with powerful machine learning algorithms in the cloud, will better enable triage, early diagnosis, and intervention, minimizing hospitalizations and delivering better patient outcomes. Immersive wearables, such as virtual and augmented reality devices, will make it easier for doctors to examine patients remotely through telemedicine sessions, as well as offer therapeutic features for patients. This talk will cover some of the many ways 5G will enable new capabilities for medical wearables and transform the delivery of healthcare.

Biography: Justin McGloin is the Senior Director of Engineering at Qualcomm where he leads the group responsible for integrating sensors technology into Qualcomm’s chipsets and solutions. Prior to Qualcomm, he worked with multiple startups, including co-founding and leading one in the gaming analytics space. He has also led the engineering group at a major Internet security company. Justin holds a Master’s degree in Computer Science from University College Dublin, Ireland.


Wearable Technologies, Sensors, and Data Analytics for Chronic Disease Applications
Sandra Nagale, PhD
Sr. Manager, Digital Health
Boston Scientific

The use of wearable technologies for medical purposes has steadily increased in recent years. However, wider adoption is still slow and points to multiple opportunities for improvement. Promising areas to increase adoption include enhancements to the core technologies and sensors (such as improved sensor accuracy, device usability, and access to actionable insights from sensor data). There are also opportunities to improve wearable technologies’ integration into healthcare systems, provide more robust security and privacy, and create a more personalized experience. This talk will include an overview of the current market and emerging opportunities, as well as examples of using wearable devices, sensors, and data analytics in a proof-of-concept clinical study, along with life-saving diagnostic algorithms for chronic disease applications. In particular, we will discuss outcomes from a clinical study that incorporated wearable devices, digital technologies, and standard measurements. The data collected in the study pointed to poor agreement between data measured with wearable devices compared to standard methods, further stressing the importance of factors such as subject compliance and device accuracy. In another example, the development of a high sensitivity predictive algorithm for heart failure events will be discussed.

Biography: Sandra Nagale is a Senior Manager on the Digital Health team at BSC, responsible for the enablement of Digital Health Studio teams that incorporate innovative, user centric, and lean principles and practices to generate high-value and high-quality digital products. After joining BSC in 2006, Sandra supported the SynergyTM stent development team before shifting focus to exploratory R&D projects and innovation within Corporate Research. Over her tenure, Sandra helped grow innovation practices at BSC (including the launch of multiple innovation portals) and also established herself as an intrapreneur, successfully developing early stage products and leading technology assessments with high business and strategic impact. Most recently, Sandra founded the Digital Health Incubator and established multiple digital health product development Studio teams across BSC. Her areas of expertise include multiple technology and therapeutic areas such as digital health, sensors, data analytics, imaging, diagnostics, regenerative medicine, cardiovascular, gastroenterology, urology, and women's health. Sandra is a past winner of the Boston Scientific CEO Winning Spirit Award and the John Abele Science and Technology Award, as well as the winner of two Innovation Fund awards. Sandra is a native of Slovenia and holds a BS in Chemistry from Univerza v Ljubljani, an MS in Chemistry from Michigan State University and a PhD in Chemistry from Tufts University.


Wearable Form Factors for Sustained Usage and Data Gathering
Chandra Narayanaswami, PhD
Principal Research Staff Member
IBM TJ Watson Research Center

The form factor of a medical device can play a significant role in both usage compliance and market adoption. This talk will touch on how the size, configuration, and physical arrangement of a medical device can directly correlate with market adoption and how to choose the appropriate form factor for each specific application. We’ll also describe some of the new wearable form factors that are now possible due to advances in engineering and sensor miniaturization. Once certain thresholds for usage and data gathering are attained, it is possible to apply artificial intelligence algorithms to generate personalized insights. We’ll discuss some of challenges that still arise with noisy, intermittent, and erroneous data, as well as how these shortfalls can be compensated, including the use of external data sets from other aspects of the users’ lives. We’ll conclude with a few impacts that blockchain technology will have both on wearable devices themselves and on the analysis of data captured by wearables.

Biography: Dr. Chandra Narayanaswami is currently a Principal Research Staff Member working on blockchain and supply chain projects at IBM Research. From 2008-2016, he worked on core science and technology for several areas of AI-based electronic commerce. Earlier, he pioneered works in several areas that impact our society today – the Linux Watch, SoulPad, and Personal Mobile Hub that included medical monitoring applications, a navigation system that was the first to provide photographs along with route information, graphics processors, and OpenGL graphics standards. Chandra has authored more than 40 scientific papers, and served as Guest Editor, Associate Editor in Chief of IEEE publications, and as General Chair and Program Committee Member of numerous ACM/IEEE conferences. He holds more than 100 US Patents and was twice named an IBM Master Inventor. He has a PhD in Computer and Systems Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and a BTech in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay. He is a Fellow of the IEEE and a Member of the IBM Academy of Technology and the IBM Industry Academy. He also serves on the IBM Academy Leadership Team.


Wearable Gas and Physiological Sensors for Medical Applications
Radislav Potyrailo
Principal Scientist, PhD
GE Research Center

Modern monitoring scenarios for medical diagnostics, industrial safety, and other applications demand sensing with higher accuracy, enhanced stability, and lower power; all in unobtrusive formats and at low cost. Available sensors often have inadequate accuracy, stability, and convenience. Our talk will be structured in three segments: First, we will analyze requirements for wearable gas and physiological sensors for personal gas exposures and health monitoring, and then map these requirements onto emerging applications in medical, consumer, industrial, and military areas. Second, we will discuss the state-of-the-art wearable sensors and highlight common themes of needed improvements. Third, we will examine recent results from academic, governmental, and industrial laboratories on new generation of wearable sensors that are focusing on the identified needed improvements. We will conclude with R&D roadmaps for medical and other demanding applications where sensor performance cannot be traded-off for miniature size or low cost.

Biography: Dr. Radislav Potyrailo is a Principal Scientist at GE Research, leading the growth of wireless, wearable, and industrial/consumer chemical and biological sensors. He has been leading programs on inventing sensing systems and bringing them from lab feasibility studies, to field validation, and to commercialization. Radislav has been Principal Investigator on programs funded by AFRL, DARPA, DHS, NETL, NIH, NIOSH, and TSWG. Some of these results Radislav summarized in 120 granted US Patents and 150+ publications on transducer technologies, sensing materials, and data analytics describing sensing concepts and their implementations. He has delivered 80+ invited lectures and ten keynote/plenary lectures at national and international conferences. He is the initiator and a co-organizer of the First Gordon Research Conference on Combinatorial and High Throughput Materials Science and other conferences and symposia (ACS, MRC, Pittcon) on sensors and functional materials. His recent recognitions include SPIE Fellow and Prism Award by Photonics Media/SPIE.


Consumer Wearables: Recent Trends and Gradual Evolution into Healthcare Applications
Cliff Raskind
Senior Director, Smart Devices and IoT
Strategy Analytics

The advent of computing at a scale small enough to be worn comfortably on the body is reframing the prevailing notions of industries such as consumer electronics, fashion, and especially fitness. Consumer wearables may be off to a mixed start, but industry heavyweights that grasp the long term promise of wearables continue to place huge bets – a promise that is increasingly driven by healthcare applications. Healthcare is indeed the “holy grail” of wearable technologies. And the evolution of biosensors, aided by sensor fusion and other AI-driven heuristics, is accelerating. These advances will allow next-generation mainstream wearables to start to generate data streams that actually become suitable in select areas of healthcare. The question is how many and how soon? In this session, we will examine the trajectory of consumer wearables and how they will become increasingly useful for healthcare applications over the next decade. We will also discuss predictions on how product roadmaps and access to capital for medical grade (e.g. FDA regulated) and consumer grade (e.g. Fitbit) types of devices will increasingly converge.

Biography: Cliff Raskind draws on over two decades in mobility, electronics, and IT to help Strategy Analytics’ clients win and succeed. His primary responsibilities encompass analyzing, tracking, and forecasting the transformation of the smart device and IoT markets. He also guides SA clients across the ICT spectrum to better anticipate key strategic issues and separate hype from reality, with respect to potentially disruptive technologies and business models. His insights and recommendations rely on deep analyst and industry-side experience, working with device vendors and solution providers. Cliff was an early member of SA’s Global Wireless Practice from 1999 to 2007, returning to the company in 2015 after working for Nokia where he ultimately led their Device Intelligence Group on a global basis. He later joined Nokia’s HERE location unit leading KPIs and strategic target setting for the Map Platform Group. Prior to originally joining SA, he was a Product Marketing Manager for EDS specializing in mobile billing systems.


How Technology Innovation in Healthcare Will Drive Down Costs
Gary Shapiro
President and CEO
Consumer Technology Association (CTA)

Technology presents an opportunity to dramatically improve our quality of life and slash healthcare costs that plague our nation. However, our healthcare system does not embrace technology as an alternative to drugs yet. Many of us wear devices to monitor our health and these devices have data that can help predict when we need treatment. Sensors provide doctors with information – such as hydration, sodium, and oxygen levels – to diagnose illness and even prescribe treatment. The data from these wearable sensors and monitors can promote wellness and cut down on costly doctor visits. For example, the Internet of Things (IoT) combined with wearable devices will benefit seniors, monitoring for falls and providing reminders for people with memory loss. Doctors, patients and regulators have a role to play in bringing down healthcare costs. With the right policies in place and wider adoption of innovative technologies, our country can go a long way toward promoting preventive care and easing the burden on our healthcare system.

Biography: Gary Shapiro is President and CEO of the Consumer Technology Association (CTA)™, the U.S. trade association representing more than 2,200 consumer technology companies and which owns and produces CES® – The Global Stage for Innovation. Mr. Shapiro directs a staff of about 200 employees and thousands of industry volunteers, leading his organization’s promotion of innovation as a national policy to spur the economy, create jobs, and cut the deficit. Mr. Shapiro is the author of the best-selling books, “Ninja Future: Secrets to Success in the New World of Innovation” (HarperCollins, 2019), “Ninja Innovation: The Ten Killer Strategies of the World’s Most Successful Businesses” (HarperCollins, 2013), and “The Comeback: How Innovation will Restore the American Dream” (Beaufort, 2011).


Medical Wearables for Improved Outcomes in Diabetes
Rohan Sonawane, MD
Clinical Marketing Manager
Medtronic

According to a recent International Diabetes Federation report, the world diabetic population is poised to grow from 425 million to 629 million by 2045. Despite therapeutic advances in diabetes, as well as huge expenditures to manage the disease, which is currently at $673 billion annually, we have not been able to control this epidemic. Continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) has helped people with type 1 and type 2 diabetes to manage their condition more effectively. CGM technology makes it easier for patients to know and share their data to optimize outcomes. This technology has evolved tremendously over the past few years and now offers solutions, such as real time display on mobile phone/smart watch, live data share with HCPs/caregivers, and data analytics to predict highs and lows, EHR integration, and many more. We need more effective monitoring solutions to guide diabetics and their caregivers regarding diet, exercise, and medication recommendations throughout the day to improve their “time in range”, without increasing the risk of hypoglycemia. It has been proven by multiple studies that use of CGM is associated with improvement in A1C and “time in range” while reducing overall hypoglycemia. This talk will focus on recent advances in CGM wearable solutions and their integration with the insulin pump technology for improving clinical outcomes in diabetes. We will discuss how the glucose sensors work within standalone wearable devices as well as in conjunction with insulin pumps. We will provide an overview of recent advances in the CGM field, including Bluetooth capabilities, predictive analytics, and future trends in better management of diabetes through wearable technologies.

Biography: Dr. Rohan Sonawane is currently the Clinical Marketing Manager at Medtronic, in the diabetes healthcare segment. He is a physician and MBA by background and has over 10 years of experience in the healthcare industry, across various domains such as medical education, medico-marketing, strategy, product launches and global marketing. He is currently leading the US projects and supporting OUS teams in effective integration of Medtronic’s CGM and insulin pump devices in the clinical trials for better, faster and more economical outcomes. He has also worked with big pharma, CRO, genetics and bariatric groups to offer them effective solutions for their clinical trials.


(2019 Technology Showcase speakers - listed alphabeticaly, by company name)

Del Lawson, PhD
Sr. Technical Manager
3M

Srijanani Bhaskar
Business Development Manager, Advanced Materials
DuPont Intexar

Chip Maschal
Vice President Sales and Business Development
Eshylon Scientific

Roozbeh Parsa
Vice President Product Sensors
Rockley Photonics

Eiken So
R&D Engineer
SCHOTT North America

Dhiraj Bora
President and CEO
Silitronics Solutions

Walt Maclay
President
Voler Systems


(2019 Startup Showcase speakers – listed alphabetically, by company name)

Marc Rippen
CEO
Alertgy

Catherine Liao
Co-Founder and CEO
Blumio

André Bertram
Co-Founder and CEO
HelpWear

Pierre-Alexandre Fournier
Co-Founder and CEO
Hexoskin

Guy Hatch, MD
CTO
Reveal BioSensors

Joe Bingold
CEO
Senaptec


(2018 speakers – listed alphabetically by speaker’s last name)

Skin-Inspired Electronics for Medical Wearables
Zhenan Bao, PhD
Professor
Stanford University

Skin is the body’s largest organ and is responsible for the transduction of a vast amount of information. This conformable, stretchable, and biodegradable material simultaneously collects signals from external stimuli that translate into information such as pressure, pain, and temperature. The development of electronic materials inspired by the complexity of this organ is a tremendous, unrealized materials challenge. The advent of organic-based electronic materials may offer a potential solution to this longstanding problem. In this talk, we will describe the design of organic electronic materials to mimic skin functions. These new materials enabled new possibilities in medical devices. Specifically, we have demonstrated sensitive flexible wireless and biodegradable pressure sensors that can be used for implantable monitoring of blood flow or intracranial pressure. Our tissue-level soft electrodes allow lower voltage nerve stimulation and high resolution electrophysiological recording. We will also discuss results from other leading research groups working in this exciting new technology area.

Biography: Zhenan Bao is a K.K. Lee Professor of Chemical Engineering, and by courtesy, a Professor of Chemistry and a Professor of Material Science and Engineering at Stanford University. Prior to joining Stanford in 2004, she was a Distinguished Member of Technical Staff in Bell Labs, Lucent Technologies from 1995-2004. She has over 400 refereed publications and over 60 US patents. She pioneered many design concepts for organic electronic materials. Her work has enabled flexible electronic circuits and displays. In her recent work, she has developed skin-inspired organic electronic materials, which resulted in unprecedented performance or functions in medical devices, energy storage and environmental applications. Bao is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and the National Academy of Inventors. She was selected as Nature’s Ten people who mattered in 2015 as a “Master of Materials” for her work on artificial electronic skin. She was awarded ACS Award on Applied Polymer Science 2017, and the L'Oréal-UNESCO For Women in Science Award in the Physical Sciences 2017. Bao is a co-founder and on the Board of Directors for C3 Nano and PyrAmes, which are both venture funded start-ups based in Silicon Valley.


Bridging the Gap: Entering the Clinic with Next Generation Wearables
Frank Everaerts, PhD
Senior Scientist, Wearable Electronics
Holst Center

The adoption of wearable technologies has been steadily increasing with many new products being released frequently. Many of the latest devices are based on advances made in microelectronics and wireless communication technologies. Each generation of devices are smaller in footprint while featuring an increased number of sensors and computing techniques combined with better wearability and higher comfort for the user. Additionally, relatively recent advances in flexible and stretchable electronics made it feasible to create smart bandages and patches that are used for all kinds of medical monitoring purposes. Despite promising outcomes of clinical investigations where wearables were used, there is still a relatively limited number of devices that are used in clinical settings nowadays. At the same time, there is a clear need to overcome challenges related to this real unmet need and tweaking of the route toward market introduction. In the presentation an overview of promising technologies to create enhanced medical wearables will be provided in combination with suggestions on how to commercialize these devices.

Biography: Frank Everaerts graduated from the Eindhoven University of Technology with a Master’s degree in Chemical Engineering and Analytical Chemistry and a PhD degree on the topic of tissue heart valves. He was employed at Medtronic Corporate Research where he developed tissue heart valves, drug release coatings for stents, and devices to measure the functionality of coatings. Thereafter he moved to Philips where he worked for Philips Research and Philips Medical Systems on various medical device related topics. He also was involved in the realization of a Philips sponsored venture that developed a wearable device. Before he got into a senior research position at Holst Centre/TNO, he supported the launch of an R∓D department at Technomed, a company producing supplies for wearables. Currently he focuses on medical devices based on hybrid printed electronics and is involved in several projects for partners and customers.


Packaging Innovations for Medical Wearables
Steven Groothuis
CTO
Samtec Microelectronics

When faced with medical wearable device requirements, most packaging engineers thrive in defining innovations, workarounds, and solutions addressing those needs and challenges. However, advanced biomedical devices require extensive interdisciplinary development efforts from technologists and medical professionals as well as extensive testing and certification. Various new, exciting, and novel applications of MEMS and sensor technologies will enable medical wearables and point of care devices. This talk will review the hierarchy within medical wearable device technologies. Areas of medical device packaging technology development and pathfinding need to include: heterogeneous device technologies, biocompatible materials, elimination of cytotoxicity, miniaturization schemes, robust interconnects (at device, package, module, and system levels), as well as the incorporation of microfluidics and optics. This presentation will focus on specific needs, challenges, and innovations within upcoming medical applications and medical device packaging.

Biography: Mr. Steven Groothuis is the Chief Technology Officer at Samtec Microelectronics in Colorado Springs and maintains the package technology and strategic roadmaps. He is involved in integrated circuit, MEMS, sensor, optical, and photonics package technology path finding. He has dealt with products in the autonomous vehicles, biomedical, optical and photonics, MEMS and sensors, and microelectronics arenas. Prior to joining Samtec, he was a DMTS at Micron Technology providing technology advancements on package development, technology path finding, as well as wafer- and package-related simulations. He also worked at ANSYS as a Multiphysics Industry Specialist on various electronics packaging and MEMS simulation initiatives. He started his career as a package technologist on up to the Advanced Semiconductor Packaging Lab Manager at Texas Instruments. Mr. Groothuis received his BS Physics from Michigan State University and MS Physics from University of Texas at Dallas. He is an IEEE Sr. Member, has coauthored over 50 papers, and holds eleven US patents.


Consumer Wearable Technology: Driving Innovation in Healthcare and Medical Devices
Ryan Kraudel
Vice President of Marketing
Valencell

Consumer wearable technology has advanced to the point where it is accurate enough for some medical purposes and use cases. In some ways, consumer wearable technology is actually outpacing medical technology, particularly in the area of optical PPG sensors. With lower costs, better form-factors, and new features advanced wearable technology is now enabling ambulatory mobile healthcare delivery, with a focus in prevention, screening, and disease management. For example, wearable devices can now detect atrial fibrillation and other arrhythmias, as well as provide diagnostics and therapeutics for other conditions including hypertension, asthma/COPD, and other cardiovascular conditions. One point of friction is merging the chaotic exploration and rapid innovation of consumer wearables with the methodical discipline of clinical validation. This talk will address these topics and identify how the application of clinical data collection and use case validation to these innovative wearable sensor technologies is advancing both the consumer wearables and medical device markets.

Biography: Ryan Kraudel leads global marketing for Valencell as VP of Marketing, and is responsible for all areas of marketing strategy and execution. Prior to Valencell, Ryan led marketing and enterprise engagement at 6fusion, rapidly growing market awareness and adoption of an innovative approach to standardizing the economic measurement of IT infrastructure. At GXS, Ryan led product marketing and product management for GXS Managed Services, helping grow the business from $40M to $150M in 7 years. Ryan holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin and an MBA from the University of Maryland.


Personal Connected Health: What is Taking So Long?
Horst Merkle
Director of Business Development
Roche Diabetes Care

Personal connected health opens the opportunity to change the way how health care is delivered by employing a more patient-centric, prevention, and care-management oriented approach. To achieve this objective, both healthcare professionals and consumers/patients need access to rich, high quality, and reliable health data to support diagnosis, monitoring, their treatment decisions, and efficient workflows. The potential for improved health outcomes at lower short-term and especially long-term costs, while providing greater consumer/patient satisfaction is widely recognized. So why don’t we see this wide adoption of personal connected health solutions? Where are the thriving business models? This presentation highlights some of the barriers and challenges which still exist after more than 10 years of development. Talk also provides evidence of a turning tide and suggestions for how especially the wearable devices industry fits into the picture and ultimately can accelerate the development of the personal connected health market, devices, and applications.

Biography: Horst Merkle has been Director at Roche Diabetes Care since 2003. His responsibilities include initiation, definition, and development of key components for the Roche Diabetes Digital Solutions product portfolio with focus on interoperability/connectivity including standardization, data and advanced data analytics. This position interfaces with all global and regional functions within the Roche Diabetes Care business. A native German with more than 30 years of experience in life sciences, health care, and health informatics, Horst held management positions in global sales and marketing, as well as business, portfolio, and product development. Horst has been living in the United States since 1997 interrupted by a 2-year assignment back at the Roche Diabetes Care Headquarters in Mannheim, Germany. With Roche’s strong and sustained engagement in the Continua Health Alliance, Horst became member of Continua’s Board of Directors in June 2008. He served as vice president and co-chair of the Board. In September 2014 he was elected President of Continua and Chair of the Board of Managers of the newly created PCHAlliance (Personal Connected Health Alliance). Horst was actively involved in the formation of the PCHAlliance which incorporated Continua and operates under the umbrella of HIMSS. Recognizing his long-standing leadership of the Alliance, he received the Personal Connected Health Champion award at the 2017 Connected Health Conference in Boston. Horst holds bachelor’s degrees in Organic Chemistry and Business Administration.


Medical Wearables in a Regulated Environment: Challenges and Emerging Trends
Darin Oppenheimer, PhD
Executive Director, Drug-Device Center of Excellence
Merck

Medical devices have significantly improved the quality of countless lives. At the same time, however, those benefits often cannot be achieved without risk, and the $350 billion medical-device industry bears much of the responsibility for managing those risks. For this reason, medical devices have come under increased scrutiny from regulators, as they attempt to respond legislatively to mitigate tragedies such as those associated with defective heart valves, breast implants, and, more recently, defective hip implants. Nevertheless, advancements in medical wearables and digital solutions have sparked an evolution in regulations to address the emerging technological landscape. In the past several years, we have seen many traditional pharmaceutical, biopharmaceutical, and technology organizations developing solutions in this space. While these changes offer new opportunities to patients and caregivers, they also bring challenges to the manufacturers and developers who are faced with bringing these products to market and maintaining them in a unique regulated space. This talk will discuss these regulatory challenges, as well as proposed solutions and emerging trends.

Biography: Dr. Darin S. Oppenheimer is an Executive Director of the Drug-Device Center of Excellence focusing on medical devices and combination products at Merck, based in Upper Gwynedd, Pennsylvania. Darin is involved in many facets of the product development lifecycle including regulatory submissions, due diligence, and active participation on industry trade organizations and standards committees over the past 15 years. His prior background as a Research and Development Scientist focused on pharmaceuticals and medical device diagnostic applications for biomarker and drug discovery. Darin’s undergraduate degree is in Molecular Biology from the University of Tampa. He also holds two Masters Degrees from Johns Hopkins University in Biotechnology and Regulatory Science as well as a graduate Certificate in Biotechnology Enterprise. Recently Darin has completed his Doctorate degree in Regulatory Science from the university of Southern California. Darin is also a 2017 Regulatory Affairs Professional Society Fellow.


Neurological and Orthopedic Applications of Precision MEMS Sensors
John Ralston, PhD
Founder and CEO
Protxx

In the United States alone, 40 million youth athletes are exposed to neurological and orthopedic injuries from repetitive impacts every year with less than 10% of initial injuries even identified. The accumulation of many relatively "small and routine" head impacts, none of which on their own trigger any concussion symptoms, has been found to trigger neurological damage and long-term degenerative disorders such as CTE. Sub-concussive injuries also cause balance impairments that increase orthopedic injury risks, and significantly expand the overall head-impact injury risk pool. Precision MEMS based sensors can be used in dual-function devices that monitor the onset and progression of both neurological and orthopedic changes triggered by athletic impact exposure, a key enabler for cost-effective solutions to this health crisis. In this talk, we will explore the wide range of devices that that have been investigated to support more comprehensive remove-from-play and return-to-play protocols to enhance athlete safety and performance.

Biography: Dr. John Ralston is a pioneer in the development of wearable devices for injury risk reduction. He has collaborated with research teams studying concussions in youth, collegiate, and professional athletics in the US and overseas, with the US military, and with leading consumer electronics and medical device manufacturers. As Founder and CEO at Silicon Valley based Protxx, Inc., he is spearheading commercialization of the first dual-function MEMS-based wearable devices that can monitor the onset and progression of both neurological and orthopedic changes triggered by athletic impact exposure. Winner of the 2016 Pioneer in Healthcare Technology Innovations Award, John has over 200 scientific publications and holds 16 patents. He earned B.Sc. degrees in Physics and in Electrical Engineering from MIT, a PhD in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University, and an MSc degree in Management of Technology from the MIT Sloan School of Business.


Enabling the Future of Remote Physical Therapy with Soft Motion Sensors
Shawn Reese, PhD
CEO
Bend Labs

The direct and indirect costs of musculoskeletal (MS) disease within the US approaches $1 trillion every year. While treatments vary, most forms of MS disease benefit from physical therapy (PT). Traditional PT calls for frequent visits to the clinic, at-home exercises, and activity restrictions. However, patient adherence to at-home therapy and completion of prescribed office visits is low, resulting in suboptimal outcomes. Wearable technology will address these challenges by making PT more accessible. A new class of technology, known as soft motion sensors, will enable a new generation of wearables that can provide clinical grade biomechanics in a convenient form factor. This talk will review existing soft sensor solutions, their integration with wireless electronics, and fusion with MEMS based sensors. A case study of a soft sensor based wearable for postsurgical rehab of total knee patients will be provided along with an outlook for the future of soft sensors in medicine.

Biography: Shawn Reese is the CEO and co-founder of Bend Labs, a company that develops soft motion sensor solutions for wearables in medicine, VR/AR, and IoT. Over the past five years Shawn has worked to develop, integrate, and scale the manufacturing of soft sensor based products for a range of exciting applications. Prior to Bend Labs, he was the lead R&D engineer at CoNextions Medical, where he helped develop a novel tendon repair technology. He received his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of Utah and BS degrees in physics and computational biology from Western Washington University. He holds over ten patents and nine peer reviewed publications.


When Wearables Meet Connected Healthcare: Ready for a Disruption?
Benjamin Roussel, PhD
Business Unit Manager
Yole Développement

Recent advances in telecommunications, microelectronics, sensors, and data analysis techniques have opened new opportunities for using wearable technology in daily life to achieve a range of improved health outcomes. Driven by chronical diseases and enabled by technology achievements (smaller circuits, microcontroller functions, sensors fusion, and wireless data transmission), smart wearable devices are ready to flood the market. As an example, a smart band device recently received the first FDA approval for epilepsy monitoring based on electrodermal activity measurement. In this case, the total accessible market is approximately 50 million people worldwide who have epilepsy, which makes it one of the most common neurological diseases globally. We estimate that the shipment of wearable medical devices will grow from 27 million units in 2016 to 94 million units in 2022. What kinds of products will enter the market? What are the current main challenges? How will the supply chain will be structured? What is the opportunity for sensors makers? This presentation will address these and other related questions.

Biography: Dr. Benjamin Roussel is Business Unit Manager of the microfluidic and medical technologies activities at Yole Développement, the “More than Moore” market research and strategy consulting company. Supporting industrial companies and R&D institutes in their development, Benjamin and his team are making the bridge between innovative microtechnologies and numerous diagnostics, pharmaceutical, life sciences, and medical devices applications. Benjamin Roussel is the author of market and technology reports focusing on bioMEMS, microfluidics, and solid state medical imaging. He also performs custom consulting projects. With his deep knowledge of these industries and related technologies, he has spoken in more than 20 industry conferences worldwide over the past 5 years. Before joining Yole, Benjamin worked in an international pharmaceutical company in the pharmacovigilance department. He holds a Pharmacy diploma from the University Claude Bernard Lyon in France, in addition to a master’s degree in Technology and Innovation Management from EM Lyon Business School in France.


Challenges in Design and Deployment of Next Generation EKGs
Enrique Saldivar, MD, PhD
Founder
Cardio6

This presentation provides an overview of current and emerging electrocardiographs. The majority of deaths worldwide are caused by cardiovascular disease (CVD), resulting in more than 17 million of deaths per year; corresponding to more than 30% of deaths around the globe. In recent years, the advent of wireless technologies has allowed the creation of wearable medical devices, improving health care availability. For patients with known or suspected CVD, it is recommended to record an electrocardiogram (EKG); clinical grade EKGs are bulky and are not available to patients except in medical facilities. Clinical EKG functionality and value are due to its multiple leads, as each lead provides a different angle to study the heart. Challenges in the design of wearable EKGs to be clinically meaningful, include the need of a balance between miniaturization, functionality, and usability. Challenges in the commercial deployment include regulatory considerations, wireless health landscape inclusion, and reimbursement models. This talk will provide an overview of the challenges in design and deployment of next generation EKGs, as well as a summary of the leading companies in this technology area.

Biography: Dr. Enrique Saldivar received his MD from Universidad La Salle (Mexico City, Mexico), his Masters in Biomedical Engineering from Universidad Autonoma Metropolitana (Mexico City, Mexico), and his PhD in Bioengineering from the University of California, San Diego. Throughout his career, he has been appointed faculty at The Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla Bioengineering Institute, The West Wireless Health Institute, and Case Western Reserve University. His expertise includes: biomechanics, microcirculation, rheology, platelet engineering, digital signal processing, image processing, bioMEMS, nanotechnology, and wireless health. Dr. Saldivar scientific career has focused on the study of biomechanical mechanisms responsible of complex physiological responses with emphasis on the rheological mechanisms, at both the cellular level and at the cell membrane level. He has made seminal contributions to the understanding of platelet adhesion under flow and chronic adaptation to extreme hypoxia. Dr. Saldivar career in medical devices has focused on the transformation of cutting-edge technological developments into meaningful medical solutions. His multidisciplinary background combined with a deep sense of social responsibility provides him with a unique perspective to provide solutions to unmet medical needs in underserved communities. Dr. Saldivar’s interests are focused on the use of technology to improve the quality of life, globally, and to ameliorate the accessibility to first-class medical attention in under-privileged communities.


Medical Wearables Intellectual Property: Emerging Trends and Key Players
Pallavi Shah
Senior Vice President
Houlihan Lokey

With sagging share prices, public questions regarding the accuracy of devices (e.g. Fitbit), and asset liquidations (e.g. Jawbone), wearables companies, once darlings of Silicon Valley, have proven their consumer electronics-focused business models need a change. This need is especially acute given the industry is experiencing significant competition from established players like Apple, Samsung, and others. The rising cost of healthcare in the US and increase in older population in China are the key drivers for inventions in medical wearables. As such, companies are modifying their strategy from delivering “lifestyle devices” to “healthcare devices” with actionable insights. This change in strategy requires disparate, IP rich industries (e.g. consumer electronics, medical devices, network security, and others) to collaborate and deliver solutions to users and healthcare professionals. Such alignment may take the form of technology and IP licensing, acquisitions, or the formation of joint ventures. This presentation will focus on technology and IP trends affecting the changing wearables industry, highlighting IP-driven deal structures, IP-specific risks, and a comprehensive overview of the wearable IP landscape.

Biography: Ms. Pallavi Shah is a Senior Vice President in Houlihan Lokey’s Tech+IP Advisory practice. As an industry-recognized thought leader and spokesperson in technology, innovation, and intellectual property, Ms. Shah has focused on helping Fortune 100 companies and their partners monetize their innovations, bring technologies to market, and protect their innovations through the filing of well over 100 patents. Ms. Shah has served as a Board Observer of venture-funded Silicon Valley startups, and has chaired various standards committees, including MPEG4-Java. She is also the inventor of worldwide patents and has authored and presented multiple technical and business papers. Previously, Ms. Shah was a Senior Vice President of IP Transactions at Black Stone IP, a boutique investment bank focused on valuing and trading Tech+IP assets, which was acquired by Houlihan Lokey in 2017. Earlier in her career, she served in various senior management roles at HP for over a decade, including where she monetized HP’s intellectual property through patent sales, technology transfer, channel/partner development, and new business incubations. Before HP, Ms. Shah managed alliances for Sun Microsystems (now Oracle Corp.). Prior to Sun, she worked for the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), where she pioneered the world’s first interactive HDTV. Ms. Shah holds a BS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Pune and an MS in Electrical Engineering from Utah State University. She is fluent in Hindi, Gujarati, and Marathi.

(2018 Technology Showcase speakers – listed alphabetically, by company name)

Kurt Carlson
Vice President
Cavist

Jennifer Nunes
Director of Marketing
Delphon

Mark Duarte
Business Development - Medical
Eastprint

Ginny Ho
Manager, Analytic Testing Laboratory
Nordson Sonoscan

Locke Chastaine
Director of Licensing and General Counsel
Sensory

(2018 Startup Showcase speakers – listed alphabetically, by company name)

Linh Le
Founder and CEO
Bonbouton

Jared Dwarika
Co-Founder
Health Care Originals

John Trobough
Executive Chairman
LifePlus

Erik Zhu
CEO
Mindband

Steve Statler
SVP Marketing and Business Development
Wiliot

(2015 speakers – listed alphabetically by speaker’s last name)

Sensor hubs for wearables: evolution and emerging trends
Francois Beauchaud
Principal Engineer
Bosch Sensortec

Over the last few years, the sensing capabilities of wearable devices have progressed significantly. Smarter, cheaper and more power efficient sensors are available today. Furthermore, measurement technologies that were once only used in applications with less stringent size and power requirements (e.g. automotive) are now within the reach of the IoT-enabled world. As such, the new use cases require a level of efficiency of embedded processing that goes beyond the capabilities of the current application processors (APs) or microcontrollers (MCUs), both of which usually require extensive engineering resources and time for specific application optimization. To alleviate this problem, some of the emerging wearable device architectures now incorporate a dedicated sensor hub which is placed between the sensors' data streams and the core processing units (e.g. the AP and/or the MCU). The sensor hub takes care of the repetitive, always-on, and specific sensor tasks which are optimized for low power and low latency, thus offloading the main system controller to focus on tasks such as the graphical user interface. This presentation will provide an overview of the existing smart hub architectures and their advantages, as well as disadvantages, for specific applications. The talk will also discuss the evolution and emerging trends of sensor hubs for wearable applications, as well as the current competitive landscape.

Biography: Francois Beauchaud started working with MEMS devices even before he graduated with a Masters Degree in Electronic Engineering from the Institut des Sciences Appliquees (INSA) of Lyon, France in 2007. While pursuing his Engineering Diploma, Francois also obtained a Master Degree in Microelectronics from the University Claude Bernard of Lyon. He is currently based in Palo Alto, California as a Principal Engineer at Bosch Sensortec. Francois previously held the position of Senior Field Applications Engineer North America for Bosch Sensortec from 2010 to 2014 and Applications Engineer for Bosch Sensortec in Germany from 2008 to 2010.


Gas sensors for wearables: trends, challenges and opportunities
Jess Brown, PhD
Sales and Marketing Director
Cambridge CMOS Sensors

Gas sensors have been around since the early 1900s, but have only recently become small and cheap enough to be integrated into consumer electronics devices. This presentation will give a brief history of gas sensors and the typical applications they are currently used in. The talk will also demonstrate how the technology has progressed to such an extent that gas sensors are now being considered an essential next-generation component in wearable devices. Integration challenges will be described, along with the possible use cases that will make gas sensors a "must have" for the consumers. The presentation will also look at the emerging technologies and the next-generation of gas sensors, as well as trends that could be adopted in the future wearable device market. Wearables are allowing the user to gain more insight into their behaviors, health and wellbeing. This presentation will show how wearables will also empower the consumer to measure their environment.

Biography: Dr. Jess Brown has over 20 years' experience in the semiconductor industry having been involved in several areas including research, applications, regional marketing, business development, product line management and sales. Having a strong technical background combined with excellent commercial understanding, he has a proven track record of driving development, company strategy and directing multi-disciplinary teams to deliver state-of-the-art products. Founded in 2008, Cambridge CMOS Sensors (CCS) is the industry leader in advanced sensor solutions providing sensor technology across multiple global markets. The technology developed by CCS offers a radical step change in performance, resulting in ultra-low power consumption, fast response time, embedded intelligence and ultra-small form factors. This has enabled the growth of new application areas for improved health and wellbeing such as ambient air quality monitoring and breath analysis in smartphones, tablets, wearables and Internet of Things (IoT) devices.


Demystifying MEMS microphones for wearables
Matt Crowley
CEO
Vesper

MEMS microphones are commonly designed into smartwatches and wrist-worn activity trackers because they provide the essential voice user interface (VUI) that lets consumers interact with their wearable device. In addition to the VUI, wearables can use MEMS microphones to actualize new applications, including buttonless multi-tap interfaces, acoustic heart rate monitoring, and ultrasonic sensing and communications. But in order to make these new applications a reality, designers must overcome severe design constraints in size, power and reliability. Reliability is especially important because the human body can be a harsh environment for electronic systems. Common environmental contaminants such as dust, water and sweat destroy capacitive MEMS microphones because these microphones require a multi-layer backplate and diaphragm structure that traps contaminants. Fortunately, there is an alternative. Unlike capacitive MEMS microphones, piezoelectric MEMS microphones have a simple single-layer design so there is no place for water or dust to get trapped. This makes them inherently waterproof, dustproof and remarkably durable. Session attendees will learn about current MEMS microphone technologies, design considerations for wearables, and emerging capabilities that can change the game.

Biography: Matt Crowley, CEO of Vesper, is passionate about building great teams to bring disruptive technologies to market. Prior to joining Vesper, Matt was founder and VP of Business Development at Sand 9, where he pioneered the development of piezoelectric MEMS for mobile timing. At Sand 9, Matt raised $50 million in capital and led partnerships with industry leaders such as Intel, Ericsson and CSR. Sand 9 was spun out of Boston University Office of Technology Development, where Matt was responsible for commercializing university technology, managing an internal venture capital fund and investing in VCs. Before joining BU, Matt worked at Mars & Co strategy consulting, where he advised Fortune 500 companies on operational and strategic issues. Matt received an interdisciplinary degree in Physics and the Philosophy of Science from Princeton University.


System architectures for wearable devices: emerging trends and developments
Boaz Efroni Rotman
Strategic Marketing – SoC Roadmap
Intel

Wearable devices drive new system constraints which are not prevalent on smartphones and tablets. One needs more integration and smaller overall solution footprint, unlike the larger mobile devices where the increased display provides ample board space. The device height (Z dimension) also becomes a major factor for all of the components. In addition, consumers have become accustomed to charging the mobile devices every day (or sometimes multiple times per day). However, when it comes to wearable devices such as watches, consumers expect to wear them for months or years before they need to replace a battery. Also, in order to get the "stickiness" factor, one must design a device with features and services that provides valuable and timely information to the user. A wearable device by nature of its definition, has the unique attribute of being attached to the body. This is where the advantage of multiple sensors and biosensors come into play, which also requires a smarter way to manage them and "decipher" their outputs. As such, new hardware architectures and usage scenarios come into play for wearable device. This talk will discuss existing and emerging system architectures for wearables, as well as product roadmaps including SoC and sensor fusion developments.

Biography: Boaz Efroni Rotman is the Director of Strategic Marketing for Intel's wearable SoC Roadmap. He has over twenty years of successful marketing, business development, and sales experience in the global high tech market. Prior to joining Intel, Boaz was the Director of Segment Marketing for imaging SoCs at CSR, opening new markets into sports camera, dash cameras, and surveillance. Prior to CSR, Boaz was the founder and CEO of SmartLine Systems, a home telephony equipment company, working with telecom companies around the globe to provide new and innovative services. Before that, Boaz served as the VP of Marketing and Sales at CellGuide (GNSS technology), Associate Director of Marketing and Sales at Horizon Semiconductors (set-top box and broadcasting multimedia SoC), and Director of Business Development at Global Locate (a fabless A-GPS IC company bought by Broadcom in 2007). Boaz holds a BS degree in Electrical Engineering from the Ben-Gurion University in Israel, and an MBA degree (Summa Cum Laude) from Netanya Academic College.


Making sense of how consumers are responding to wearables
John Feland, PhD
CEO
Argus Insights

Bioimpedance sensors, multi-axis gyros, pulse oximeters, electrocardiograms, food identification devices, and other gadgets are increasingly being placed into the hands of consumers. Wearable devices are rapidly becoming the main platform to handle as many sensing functions as possible for the excited, but sometimes unsuspecting consumers. Through the analysis of over 300,000 consumer product reviews, this talk will focus on which sensors are failing to help their users make sense of their activity, performance, and surroundings. The talk will include a discussion about ways in which wearable device companies are integrating sensors to drive adoption. The presentation will also showcase lessons learned on how *not* to bring a new technology to market, with a special focus on sensing devices and technologies. Finally, this talk will explore unmet consumer needs and identify areas where new sensor technologies could help drive further growth in the wearables market.

Biography: John Feland is an award-winning founder and CEO of Argus Insights, Silicon Valley's first big data driven market coach firm. Recognizing that companies are constantly striving to achieve and sustain market fit in the face of competitive threats and shifting customer preferences, Argus Insights with their patent pending technology continuously monitors and analyzes millions of consumer touchpoints to measure the degree to which products satisfy market demand. These tools and methods have allowed Argus Insights to beat Wall Street estimates of consumer adoption in smartphones, wearables, consumer IoT, and other markets. John holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from MIT, an MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University, and a PhD in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford University. An expert in consumer response to technology, John is a frequent event speaker and his reports are cited in top publications such as Fortune, Forbes, San Francisco Chronicle, as well as dozens of technology magazines.


Flexible technologies: the next frontier for wearable devices
Edzer Huitema, PhD
CTO
Polyera

Most current wearables are built around traditional, rigid components; this greatly limits their usability, as the human body is flexible and curved. Especially smartwatches, using rigid, flat displays, can only use a small-sized display to fit onto the wrist. This limits the interaction models and usability in a similar way the candy bar phones from 15 years ago limited the usability of the mobile phone. A logical next step for wearable technology is therefore the use of flexible components. This will result in products utilizing the body's available surface area in a much more efficient way, leading to new devices with enhanced capabilities and use. This talk will discuss the current status and outlook of flexible displays and other flexible components for wearable device application. The talk will also present the first wearable product which utilizes a large flexible display.

Biography: Dr. Edzer Huitema is the CTO of Polyera, a global start-up company enabling flexible electronic products. Edzer has 15 years of experience in flexible displays and product design using flexible displays. Prior to joining Polyera, Edzer was the CTO of Polymer Vision, a Philips spin-out pioneering flexible displays and products incorporating them. Prior to that, Edzer held various management positions at Philips. Edzer holds over 140 granted U.S. and foreign patents, and has published over 40 papers and 3 book chapters on flexible electronics. Edzer holds a PhD in Physical Chemistry from the University of Utrecht in the Netherlands.


Integration of electronics in textiles: technological challenges and solutions
Malte von Krshiwoblozki
R&D Project Manager
Fraunhofer Institute for Reliability and Microintegration

The market for wearable electronics will grow rapidly during the next 5 years. Sensor systems for monitoring body signals and motion will play an important role in the emerging wearable e-health, fitness, and security market. In particular, textile based systems offer lucrative opportunities because they are stretchable, breathable, and easily adapt to the shape of the human body. However, technological challenges have to be overcome to handle the harsh and diverse applications of textile based wearable sensor systems. This talk will provide an overview of different technologies suitable for the textile manufacturing circuitry. Also, the available diversity of suitable conductors such as metallized polymer yarns (which can be used as electrodes), or special copper litz wires (which are preferred for energy distribution) will be discussed. Additionally, general challenges to integrate electronics and several technologies (such as soldering, ICA/NCA-gluing and force-fit) with compatibility indication for the different textile circuitries will be reviewed. Finally, observations regarding appropriate system design and packaging of the modules will complete the review.

Biography: Malte von Krshiwoblozki is an R&D engineer and project manager at Fraunhofer IZM/TU in Berlin, Germany. He holds a degree in microsystem technologies. During several large EU and national interdisciplinary research projects (e. g. PLACE-IT and PASTA) he gained deep knowledge of emerging technologies for future markets. Malte's primary expertise and interest is in ''e-textiles", and also in stretchable and flexible electronics. His research has been concentrated on interconnection technologies to merge electronics and textiles, as they are important enablers to move wearable "e-textiles" from lab prototypes to volume production and the mainstream market.


Motion sensing technology trends and applications for wearable devices
Ben Lee
President and CEO
mCube

Motion sensors are already embedded in millions of wearable gadgets on the market today and more are being introduced. However, many of these wearable devices face adoption and user retention challenges. What are the application trends that will truly make wearables an integral part of our everyday lives? And how will advancements in motion sensing technology enable this? Important innovation is happening with MEMS technology and system level integration that will enable radical new ways in which motion sensors can be used to capture life's movements. This session will provide a comprehensive overview of current and emerging uses of motion sensors in wearable devices, as well as emerging motion sensor technologies and solutions. The presentation will also review the current technology trends and challenges associated today's motion sensor designs, and how MEMS suppliers are approaching these challenges. Finally, this talk will explore how new innovations will deliver motion sensors that are microscopic in size, consume very little power, and are so cost-effective that they will "evolve" wearables as we know them today into devices that become an integral part of life for billions of people around the world.

Biography: Mr. Ben Lee is President and Chief Executive Officer of mCube, Inc. He has over 20 years of senior management experience in the semiconductor industry with a successful track record of driving rapid revenue and profit growth in the global consumer electronics market. Prior to mCube, he served as SVP of Worldwide Sales at Cypress Semiconductor Corporation. Prior to Cypress, he served as VP of Worldwide Sales at Trident Microsystems and COO at Apexone Microelectronics, based in Shanghai. Mr. Lee has also served as VP Asia Pacific at Altera Corporation, General Manager of China at National Semiconductor Corporation, and VP of Worldwide Marketing at Chartered Semiconductor Manufacturing in Singapore. He holds a BSEE from California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo, and a MBA from Golden Gate University, San Francisco. Mr. Lee serves on the Industry Advisory Board for Cal Poly Electrical Engineering and is a Board Director of Ten Degrees, Inc.


Soft-matter sensing for wearable health monitoring
Tingrui Pan, PhD
Associate Professor
University of California, Davis

Wearable and mobile health monitoring technologies have recently received enormous interest worldwide due to the rapidly aging global populations and the drastically increasing demand for in-home healthcare. Body worn sensors, which can provide real-time continuous measurement of pertinent physiological parameters noninvasively and comfortably for extended periods of time, are of crucial importance for emerging applications of mobile medicine. Wearable sensors that can wirelessly provide pertinent health information while remaining unobtrusive, comfortable, low cost, and easy to operate and interpret, play an essential role. This talk will provide a comprehensive overview of emerging soft-matter sensing technologies with the state-of-the-art materials, fabrication process flows and their potential health-related applications. As compared to the solid-state counterparts, these new types of wearable sensors could potentially offer high device sensitivities, flexible stretchable constructs, adaptive properties to body ergonomics, and improved biocompatibility, which are all crucial to continuous health monitoring in the next-generation of wearables.

Biography: Professor Tingrui Pan received B.Eng degree in Thermal Engineering from Tsinghua University (Beijing, China), and MS degree in Biomedical Engineering, MSEE degree and PhD degree in Electrical Engineering from the University of Minnesota. In 2006, Prof. Pan joined in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the University of California, Davis, where he is currently an Associate Professor and Director of Micro-Nano Innovations (MiNI) Laboratory (http://mini.ucdavis.edu). He directs the Center for Nano and Micro Manufacturing (CNM²), a 10,000 sq ft cleanroom facility for micro and nanofabrication (http://research.engineering.ucdavis.edu/cnm2). His latest research interests include nanofluidic sensing, nanofabrication, bio-nano-interface, bioelectricity, lab-on-a-chip, digital chemistry, mobile health and regenerative medicine. He has authored and co-authored more than eighty refereed journal and conference publications and held more than 15 US and international patents/patent applications. He was a recipient of NSF CAREER Award and Xerox Foundation Award, and a co-recipient of NSF EFRI Award. In 2011, Dr. Pan received the Outstanding Engineering Junior Career Faculty Award and the Outstanding Service Award from UC Davis.


Wearables at the peak of inflated expectations: myths and realities
Michele Reitz
Principal Research Analyst
Gartner

Wearables, as a subset of the Internet of Things (IoT), are oft-hyped as a potential "net new" opportunity for semiconductor market growth. This talk will quantify the revenue opportunity for semiconductor players overall with a focus on key wearables categories and a cost analysis for these devices based on teardowns. We will look at the competitive landscape for semiconductors in the IoT, with a deeper dive on how these vendors are gaining share in wearables, and which sensors and companies are leading the pack. Since the market is still emerging, we will turn to valuable use cases that have materialized that are truly are compelling, such as saving time and money or improving quality of life for the user. Finally, we will look at next-generation sensors in wearable applications, and conclude with a call to action to the wearables and sensors electronics community.

Biography: Michele Reitz is a Principal Research Analyst in the Semiconductor group of Gartner's Semiconductor and Electronics division. She focuses on semiconductors in consumer markets, including wearables and the Internet of Things, FPGAs and EDA. Ms. Reitz has almost 30 years of experience in the semiconductor and electronic equipment industry. Her positions include hardware design, application engineering and technical sales roles in leading electronic design automation, semiconductor and service companies, giving her a deep understanding of the semiconductor design flow and technologies. Prior to her current position, Ms. Reitz was a Client Account Executive at Gartner for more than four years, focused on high-end semiconductor and end-user clients. Before Gartner, she worked in various roles, including sales and sales management, applications engineering, and design engineering for semiconductor, electronic design automation software and systems companies. Ms. Reitz holds a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering (Computer Engineering and Processor-Based Design) from Georgia Tech.


Electroactive polymer-based technologies: opportunities for wearable applications
Jason Rouse, PhD
Technical Marketing Manager
Wacker Chemical

For the past 15 years, electroactive polymers (EAPs) have been an active research area that is now quickly making its way into wearable devices. While early research and commercialization centered around the ability of electroactive polymers to produce actuation movement, and therefore artificial muscle structures, recent development has also expanded into using the technology for stress and force sensors and even energy generation. The use of the "capacitance" properties of electroactive polymers, coupled with low-cost and compact electronics, is allowing their cost effective integration into a host of products. This talk will review the physics behind EAPs, a brief history of technology development, the role of silicone elastomers, and then focus on the many innovative solutions appearing on the market and being integrated into wearables. The presentation will include a discussion of the key commercial and R&D technology players, as well as existing challenges and what's coming up on the EAP technology roadmap in the next few years.

Biography: Dr. Jason Rouse joined Wacker Chemical Corporation in 2013 as the Technical Marketing Manager for Electronics and LED. One of the product lines he oversees in North America is the ELASTOSIL® Films, ultrathin and highly uniform silicone sheets used in the production of electroactive polymer devices. Dr. Rouse's experience in electroactive polymers dates back to the early 2000s when he worked on silicone-based electroactive systems at the NASA Langley Research Center. Prior to moving to Wacker he worked in the area of conductive materials and printed electronics at Ferro Corporation and Sun Chemical. Jason holds a PhD from Lehigh University and a MBA from Fordham University.


Energy efficient wearables: an ounce of preprocessing is worth a pound of computing
Timothy Saxe, PhD
Sr. Vice President and CTO
QuickLogic

A basic wearable device is essentially a sensor node that reads sensor data at 100Hz or so, converts it into information at 1Hz or so, and then uploads it to a processing node (which is typically a smart phone). The typical computation flow can be divided between the "always-on" processing that happens at 100Hz, and the intermittent processing that happens at 1Hz or less. As it turns out, 99% of the energy is spent on the "always-on" processing and only approximately 1% on the intermittent processing. This means that saving energy in the "always-on" processing has a large effect on battery life. One way to make computations more energy efficient is to implement them directly in hardware, and many of the "always-on" functions lend themselves to this approach. This presentation will show how careful allocation of sensor processing functions between software and hardware can result in significant levels of power reduction.

Biography: Dr. Timothy Saxe joined QuickLogic in May 2001 and has served as the company's Sr. Vice President and Chief Technology Officer since November 2008. Prior to this role, Dr. Saxe served as QuickLogic's Chief Technology Officer and Sr. Vice President of Engineering from August 2006 to November 2008, and as Vice President of Software Engineering from May 2001 to August 2006. From November 2000 to February 2001, Dr. Saxe was Vice President of Flash Engineering at Actel Corporation, a semiconductor manufacturing company. Dr. Saxe joined GateField Corporation, a design verification tools and services company formerly known as Zycad, in June 1983 and was a founder of their semiconductor manufacturing division in 1993. Dr. Saxe became GateField's Chief Executive Officer in February 1999 and served in that capacity until GateField was acquired by Actel in November 2000. Mr. Saxe holds a BSEE degree from North Carolina State University, and MSEE and PhD degrees in electrical engineering from Stanford University.


Development of flexible-hybrid electronics manufacturing and potential impacts on wearables
Paul Semenza
Director
FlexTech Alliance

Wearable applications present significant challenges to electronics design and manufacturing. While flexible electronic devices are available for some important functions, the specifications needed for processing, imaging, and other high-performance functions typically require semiconductor devices whose packaging is rigid and bulky. By combining these technologies, flexible hybrid electronics systems offer the potential for high performance in thin, lightweight, conformable packages, while enabling enhanced sensing and communications capabilities as well as the potential for active functions such as soft robotics and medical intervention. However, the ability to manufacture such systems is currently limited, as the printed electronics and semiconductor segments tend to be distinct. The creation of the Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Institute, a public-private venture, seeks to address this by developing an ecosystem for flexible hybrid electronics manufacturing. This talk will provide an overview of the latest trends and developments in flexible-hybrid electronics manufacturing, including existing challenges and opportunities. The presentation will also outline the vision and roadmap for the flexible-hybrid electronics manufacturing infrastructure and ecosystem.

Biography: Paul Semenza is a consultant to the FlexTech Alliance, supporting its proposal for the Flexible Hybrid Electronics Manufacturing Innovation Institute, and since the $171 million award in August 2015, working to launch the institute. He has managed market research in flat panel displays, touch, flexible electronics, and solar PV, including serving as President of DisplaySearch and Solarbuzz (as part of The NPD Group), and before that at iSuppli and Stanford Resources. Prior to his work in market research, Paul worked in technology policy, as a program officer at the Computer Science and Telecommunications Board of the National Research Council, and an analyst for the US Congress Office of Technology Assessment (OTA). Paul started his career in engineering, as a member of technical staff at The Analytic Sciences Corporation. He has a Bachelor's degree in Electrical Engineering and a Master's degree in Electro-optics, both from Tufts University, and a Master's degree in Public Policy, from the Harvard Kennedy School.


Wearable brain activity monitoring: history, applications, and emerging trends
Walid Soussou, PhD
President
Wearable Sensing

Over the past few decades, concerted neuroscience research and developments in brain activity monitoring technology have revealed new insight into the workings of the brain in dynamic environments. These developments are propelling new applications for wearable brain activity monitoring in the real-world. For medical applications, demand is for early diagnosis with sports or battle field injuries, as well as the long-term home monitoring of various neurological disorders such as: traumatic brain injury (TBI), post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), mild cognitive impairment (MCI), Alzheimer's disease (AD), and others. Furthermore, pharmaceutical companies and individual patients are seeking methods for rapid quantification of neuro-active drug effects outside the lab, such as for treatment of depression, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), or other neuropsychological ailments. On the consumer electronics side, potential applications of wearable brain activity monitoring are burgeoning into entire fields: brain computer interfaces (BCI), neuro-gaming, neuro-ergonomics, neuro-marketing, neuro-education, peak-performance neurofeedback, and augmented cognition. This presentation will provide a comprehensive overview of the current applications and challenges for wearable brain activity monitoring. The talk will also discuss innovative commercial solutions to date, and potential future applications of this latest frontier of wearable sensors.

Biography: Dr. Walid Soussou is the CEO of Quantum Applied Science and Research Inc. (QUASAR), where he leads and manages the company's efforts at developing applications of dry-electrode EEG technology for cognitive assessment. Dr. Soussou is also President of Wearable Sensing, which has licensed QUASAR's dry sensor interface technology and is manufacturing and marketing it. Dr. Soussou leverages his PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Southern California (USC), expertise in brain-computer interfaces, and experience in sleep research, for developing commercial applications of QUASAR's wearable EEG/EOG/EMG/ECG sensors. With funding from NIH, NSF, and DoD, QUASAR has developed a suite of unique zero-prep physiological sensors with reliable gauges for assessment of cognitive engagement, workload, fatigue, and stress. These gauges are valuable tools with both military and non-military applications, as they enable monitoring cognitive states of soldiers, air traffic controllers, employees, customers, students, or anyone in real-world environments.


Bio-integrated flexible and stretchable electronics: new modality for wearable electronics
Pulin Wang, PhD
Managing Director
Stretch Med

Recent advancements in wireless technologies prompted the Forbes Magazine to name 2014 as the year of wearable technology. Meanwhile, physiological sensors have stayed unchanged due to the lack of fundamental breakthrough in the form factors of wafer-based electronics. Metals and inorganic semiconducting materials are intrinsically planar, rigid, and brittle. As a result, integrated circuit (IC)-based wearable devices are unable to maintain intimate and prolonged contact with the curved, soft, and dynamic human body to retrieve long-term, high-fidelity physiological signals. Recent advancements in flexible and stretchable electronics have provided viable solutions to bio-integrated electronics. Among many breakthroughs, epidermal electronic systems (EES) represent a paradigm-shift wearable device whose thickness and mechanical properties can match that of human epidermis. As a result, the EES can conform to human skin like a temporary transfer tattoo and deform with the skin without detachment or fracture. The EES was first developed to monitor electrophysiological signals, and thereafter skin temperature, skin hydration, sweat, and others. This talk will provide a comprehensive overview of bio-integrated flexible and stretchable electronics and, specifically, EES technologies. The talk will include a discussion of the key commercial and R&D technology players, the overall supply chain ecosystem, emerging trends, existing challenges, and the most promising initial use cases and applications.

Biography: Pulin Wang is the co-founder and managing director of Stretch Med, Inc. Pulin received his PhD from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a MS in Technology Commercialization from the University of Texas at Austin. He has co-authored three patent applications in the areas of life sciences and flexible electronics. In addition to technical expertise, Pulin has worked as a Senior Associate at Austin Technology Incubator, a Venture Scholar at G51 Texas Super Angel Capital Management, and a Technology Commercialization Analyst for Global Commercialization Group of UT Austin.


(2014 speakers – listed alphabetically by speaker’s last name)

MEMS based sensors for wearable device designs
Francois Beauchaud
Principal Engineer
Bosch Sensortec

Wearable devices and MEMS based sensors are tightly connected. Sensors used in wearable designs are currently inherited from applications driven by the mobile handset designs. As the wearable market develops and evolves, new sensor based solutions will be available. As such, sensor vendors are compelled to grow their MEMS sensor portfolios to best address the needs of such new use cases. Based on the current trends, the largest product development opportunities will come from advanced and novel data processing software. This presentation will provide details on the MEMS sensors currently used in most wearable designs (accelerometers, gyroscopes, magnetometers and pressure sensors), outline technical challenges, and cover examples of use cases enabled by the developer community. The talk will also provide an overview of potential new sensors for wearable devices and their applications, underlining how the tight coupling between sensors, processing subsystems, firmware algorithms and application development is essential for compact, power-efficient, and robust designs.

Biography: Francois Beauchaud started working with MEMS devices even before he graduated with a Masters Degree in Electronic Engineering from the Institut des Sciences Appliquees (INSA) of Lyon, France in 2007. While pursuing his Engineering Diploma, Francois also obtained a Master Degree in Microelectronics from the University Claude Bernard of Lyon. He is currently based in Palo Alto, California as a Principal Engineer at Bosch Sensortec. Francois previously held the position of Senior Field Applications Engineer North America for Bosch Sensortec from 2010 to 2014 and Applications Engineer for Bosch Sensortec in Germany from 2008 to 2010.


Barriers to reaching the full potential of wearables
Douglas Bogia, PhD
Mobile Health Lead Architect
Intel Corporation

Estimates of compound annual growth rate (CAGR) for wearables vary between 50% and 80% over the next 5 years. These growth rates represent an attractive market, but several barriers limit wearable device adoption. This presentation explores a broad range of these limitations (e.g., interoperability, data ownership, and security) that have applicability across many environments (e.g., industrial, military, infotainment, health & fitness). As more devices become connected to the Internet, a tremendous opportunity exists to fuse data from wearables and other "Internet of Things" devices to create innovative and compelling solutions. Often, this requires additional, adjacent architectural components such as gateways and cloud analytics, which will be briefly discussed as well. Finally, since the healthcare and fitness categories are presently the largest market spaces for wearables, the presentation covers unique challenges and proposes solutions tailored to these specific markets.

Biography: Doug Bogia is a Mobile Health Architect in Intel's Health and Life Sciences team. In 1995, Doug received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign in Computer Supported Collaborative Work. Since joining Intel in 1995, Doug has held a number of positions ranging from implementing collaborative business and personal products, implementing small business support services, to creating telecommunication products. In 2002, he assisted with creating the Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture standard enabling the telecommunications industry to begin interoperable implementations in 2003. From 2005 to 2011, he shifted focus to the healthcare industry. Doug led the formation of the ISO/IEEE 11073 Personal Health Devices Work Group and served five years as the work group chair. Doug also chaired the Guidelines Control Board for the Continua Health Alliance and participated in the Bluetooth and USB Medical Devices Working Groups. In late 2011, he joined the Context Awareness team and studied mechanisms to improve device awareness of surrounding context and provided recommendations based on that information. In 2013, he transitioned back into Health and Life Sciences to assist customers with addressing their mobile computing goals.


Wearables: the path to credible product category from interesting niche
James Bruce
Director of Mobile Computing
ARM

The topic of wearables has increasingly made its way into the technology headlines. This class of product represents a diverse range of devices, including bands, smartwatches and glasses. These devices typically connect wirelessly to a smartphone providing a connection to the internet. ABI Research estimated about 50M wearables shipped in 2013. At CES, Embedded World and Mobile World Congress earlier this year, a wide range of new devices were launched and with Google's announcement of an Android version, Android Wear, specifically targeted for this area, the volumes are set to more than double in 2014. As with any emerging market, the initial set of pioneering products pursue a diverse range of technology approaches, as companies explore the right balance of functionality, cost, form factor and battery life. This presentation will examine the growth and chart the future of this market, including: (a) highlighting the changes ARM expects to see in the value chain around this market, given the use cases we expect to see for this category of products, (b) predicting some of the new user interface, sensor and security functionality, not present in the first wave of devices, that will be needed to make this a viable product category and not be relegated to (relatively) small niches, and (c) explore how these current products are constructed and share some of ARM's thoughts as to how these systems and the technologies that will be needed to deliver the power and performance cost points needed for future solutions


Ultra-low power sensor sampling solution for wearable device applications
Mark Buccini
Director, Microcontroller Applications
Texas Instruments

To effectively utilize the extremely limited power source typical with most wearable electronic technology, exercising the most energy-aware embedded design practices is an absolute must. This presentation details a practical ultra-low power (e.g. 1uA) sensor sampling solution implemented using low-cost, off-the-shelf components and readily available sensors. This presentation will build-up, through a series of examples, a complete signal-chain starting from the power source, sensor, data conversion, embedded processor concluding with the user interface. The concept of managing an overall system power budget will be the fundamental undertone of the presentation. The importance of energy-aware firmware, system architecture, duty cycling, sensor measurement, supply voltage and clock gating will be reviewed. Advanced but realistic techniques including the usage of autonomous peripherals, dynamic voltage scaling and full power gating will be presented in detail. Using the techniques discussed, a working ultra-low power sensor sampling deeply embedded system will be demonstrated as part of this interactive presentation.

Biography: Mark E. Buccini is responsible for new product and marketing strategy as a staff member at Texas Instruments with 25 years' experience. Recently he has driven the introduction of new family of magnetic hall-effect sensors, monolithic automotive integrated smart BLDC motor drivers, as well as the creation of the TI's Smart Grid Business Unit. He was directly responsible for the world-wide launch, new product definition, applications and product marketing of the popular MSP430 family of ultra-low power microcontrollers. Mark lives in Allen, Texas, is married with two children and has a Bachelor's of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan.


Force sensors: the next "killer app" for wearable devices?
Ian Campbell
Founder and CEO
NextInput

Wearable devices have rapidly become smart sensor hubs with the introduction of MEMS based sensor technologies such as microphones, accelerometers, gyroscopes, and pressure sensors. As market demand increases for new differentiating features and functionality, wearable device manufacturers are seeking new sensor technologies to include in their products. In the past few years, manufacturers have experimented with adding MEMS force sensors to wearable devices to replace older “binary” human interfaces – mechanical switches, knobs, and sliders – and to add new features like pulse heart rate monitoring. These pioneering manufacturers faced many challenges around the size, cost, and durability of MEMS force sensor technology for human interface applications. NextInput has solved a number of these challenges with its MEMS based touch technology, ForceTouch, and is now working with major wearable OEMs to solve the remaining engineering challenges related to mass producing MEMS force sensor solutions for wearable devices. This talk will provide a brief overview and history of force sensor technology, describe NextInput's approach along with its advantages and disadvantages, discuss potential applications of force sensors on the wearable device platform, and outline the current technical challenges that NextInput's team is working to solve.

Biography: Ian Campbell began his career designing automated manufacturing lines for companies such as Nokia, GM, and Daimler/Mercedes. Later, Mr. Campbell worked as a research engineer at the Georgia Tech Aerospace Systems Design Laboratory. After receiving his MBA and Masters of Science in Aerospace Engineering from Georgia Tech, Ian worked as a management consultant advising Fortune 100 companies in strategy, operations, and product development. Ian co-founded NextInput in 2012 with Dr. Ryan Diestelhorst, also a Georgia Tech alum, with the mission to develop the world's best force-sensitive interfaces and MEMS based force sensors.


Powering wearable device sensors for extended battery life
John Demiray
Sr. Strategic Marketing Manager, Mobile Products
NXP

Wearable devices of the future are expected to provide critical life-enhancing features. These features will support monitoring of the heart rate, blood pressure and other biometric vital signs in addition to tracking our fitness and activity levels. At the same time, they will need to connect to a network to send and receive frequent updates. Wearable devices available today do not reach their potential as a critical part of our life and health due to frequent and time consuming charging requirements. If, in the future, wearable devices are expected to be more of an extension of our health and lifestyle, technological advances are needed to reduce the power consumption of sensors and internet connectivity when these functions are not in operation. This presentation will cover the optimization of power architectures to increase the battery life and reduce the charge time of wearable devices to make them truly available in our everyday life.

Biography: John Demiray is Sr. Strategic Marketing Manager for mobile products at NXP. John has over 25 years of experience in the semiconductor industry, spanning marketing and business development responsibilities in the areas of smartphones, tablets, power management and enterprise networking. Before NXP, John was a Marketing Manager at Renesas, directing all aspects of new product definition, business development, and product launch for power MOSFETs, optical image stabilization, CMOS image sensors and wireless/USB charging products. John has a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of North Carolina and a Master of Science degree in Electrical Engineering from Middle East Technical University in Turkey.


Toward an open data ecosystem for wearable devices
Rachel Kalmar, PhD
Data Scientist
Misfit Wearables

From activity trackers to Google Glass, wearables are all the rage. But who should get access to the data? Unfortunately, just because you wear a device doesn't mean that you get access to your data. As a data scientist, I've been wearing 20+ activity trackers for the past 18 months. What have I learned? I've learned that I can't get my time-resolved data from these devices. Why not? Issues of privacy, lack of standards, and unclear business models for personal data collection and sharing make this difficult. Given this, where we're headed is not toward an Internet of Things, but toward many siloed Internets of Things. This talk will discuss barriers and enablers to creating an open data ecosystem that lays the foundation for one integrated network of connected devices.

Biography: Dr. Rachel Kalmar is a data scientist at Misfit Wearables, where she wrangles noisy data and tries to quantify anything and everything she can. A Stanford neuroscience PhD, she's spent over a decade using data to explain, predict and influence behavior. She is active in the Bay Area hardware community and runs Sensored, a 1000+ person meetup group for people working on sensor devices and applications (meetup.com/Sensored). Rachel is an alum of the d.school, Singularity University, and Rock Health, and her favorite hashtag is #geekparadise.


Government regulations: the impact on wearable device manufacturers
Jitendra "Jitty" Malik, PhD
Partner
Alston & Bird

Wearable sensors are becoming increasingly prevalent in our society to monitor various aspects of human activity, including human physiology. Accordingly, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ("FDA") is becoming increasingly vigilant in monitoring certain wearable technologies. Congress also is signaling its intent to scrutinize the information wearable devices collect and process. Recently, the FDA issued guidance explaining which wearable devices it intends to regulate and how it intends to regulate them. Depending on the intended application, a wearable device manufacturer could subject themselves to scrutiny from the FDA. The FDA's regulations will have broad implications for developers of wearable technologies. Among the topics covered in the talk, we will discuss the FDA regulations, including which wearable devices will be regulated by the FDA, how the FDA will make a determination whether a wearable device will be subject to its regulations, and an overview of the kinds of information a manufacturer will have to provide to comply with the regulatory regime. Some device manufacturers have already approached the FDA, and their discussions with the FDA have been made public. The contents of these discussions will be presented to provide the audience with a better understanding of the FDA's thoughts as it comes to its own regulations. We will also discuss some of the concerns expressed by Congress, and the information Congress has requested in the wearable device space, in an effort to better understand future regulatory changes.

Biography: Dr. Jitendra "Jitty" Malik is a partner in the Alston & Bird’s Intellectual Property Litigation Group. Dr. Malik's scientific expertise includes electronic materials, semiconductor processing, adhesive science, polymer chemistry and physics, electrochemistry, organometallic chemistry and biochemistry. Prior to attending law school, Dr. Malik was a project supervisor for a leading semiconductor materials manufacturer. Dr. Malik has been published numerous times in scholarly scientific and legal literature.


Wearable technologies: market trends, solutions and business models
Sam Massih
Director, Wearable Sensors
InvenSense

Wearable technologies have only been in the mainstream for 3+ years now and we are already asking the question: "why hasn't it hit the mass market yet"? We'll look at where it's been, what's the market feedback on these products, and what are the new features of the next generation of devices. We'll discuss how the sensor platform system solutions from InvenSense will deliver some of these next generation usage cases which will move this market from the early adopter phase to the high volume consumer mainstream. We'll also dive deeper into the end-to-end business model for the wearable platform. Understanding the OEM's business model will help companies set their sensor platform system strategy. In the case of InvenSense, we thought if we can help our customers succeed in their business model, we can become more than just a sensor vendor to our customers. We'll discuss how this approach will help the OEM with the monetization of their cloud based business model.

Biography: Sam Massih is a semiconductor industry veteran with 18 years of experience in establishing, growing, and managing technology based businesses. His entire career has centered around defining and launching new semiconductor product lines targeted at consumer markets such as mobile, tablet, STB, LCD TV, DSC, and now wearable technologies. Sam's past adventures has taken him to Maxim, NXP (formally Philips Semiconductor), and Semtech where he's been responsible for establishing and growing analog video, LED, and touch interface businesses, respectively. Sam's most recent challenge has been at InvenSense where he is focusing on enabling the next generation of wearable products in the fitness, mobile, and smart bands markets. These markets will require more sensor data to drive better lifestyle decisions, provide day-to-day utility, and generate more valuable data for the cloud services. Mr. Massih holds a MBA from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, a MSEE from University of New York, and a BSEE from Pennsylvania State University.


Assessment of reliability standards for wearable medical devices
John McNulty, PhD
Principal Engineer
Exponent

Development of standard methodologies and qualification procedures enables the medical electronics device industry to enact changes more quickly, adopt new technologies, and bring products to market in a shorter time. Standard methodologies and qualification procedures are of particular need in the relatively fast-moving market segment of wearable and portable medical devices, which is transitioning from devices based in controlled hospital environments to devices that can be operated by non-healthcare professionals, worn on the body, and operate in a wide variety of environments. This presentation will report on the work done by an iNEMI project team to develop a reliability qualification methodology for certain types of wearable electronic medical devices. It will include a discussion of the specific requirements and testing needed when considering wearable medical devices, and a review of current industry approaches along with identified gaps and recommended mitigation strategies.

Biography: Dr. John McNulty is a Principal Engineer in Exponent's Materials and Corrosion Engineering practice, where he has worked since 2009. He chairs the iNEMI working group on reliability standards for implantable medical electronic devices, and is a participant in the working group focused on wearable/portable medical electronic devices. His areas of specialization include failure analysis of components and systems, reliability testing and analysis, and electronic/opto-electronic packaging and assembly. He received a PhD in Materials Engineering from UC Santa Barbara and a BS in Materials Science and Engineering from UC Berkeley. He is a licensed Professional Engineer and a Certified Reliability Engineer.


Trends in wearables manufacturing: challenges and opportunities
David Michael, PhD
Director, Core Vision Tool Development
Cognex Corporation

Manufacturing wearables requires fast production ramp up with quick product changeover. At the same time, consumer buyers of wearable devices insist on high product quality and low cost. These requirements parallel the overall shift from traditional labor-intensive manufacturing to advanced technology-based manufacturing. Wearable device manufacturing trends are towards tighter integration of R&D and production, mass customization, increased automation, and a focus on the environment without increasing costs or sacrificing performance. These trends hold as wearables incorporate new sensor technologies, as well as new flexible circuitry and displays. They also hold for wearable devices for fitness, healthcare, medical, infotainment, military, and industrial applications. I will discuss these trends as well as some of the technical challenges in wearables manufacturing with scaling, short product life cycles, high quality, and low cost. I will also provide specific examples on how automation and machine vision can address some of these challenges, especially with the newest, cutting-edge devices.

Biography: Dr. David Michael received the B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering from Cornell University in Ithaca, New York in 1985 and the S.M. degree in Radiological Science and Ph.D. degree in Computer Vision from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1986, and 1992 respectively. He joined Cognex Corporation in 1992 where he is currently Director, Core Vision Tool Development. Dr. Michael has authored or coauthored 50 issued US patents in different aspects of machine vision including camera and robot calibration, image registration, color, image processing and inspection.


Timing chips for wearable applications: design and performance considerations
Steve Pratt
Marketing Director
SiTime

Today's wearable devices are pushing the envelope on functionality, battery life and form factor. As wearables continue to increase functionality, timing solutions help optimize the performance of all operations such as wireless connectivity, sensor interface, and MCU processing. All these subsystems benefit from small and accurate reference clocks. For example, WiFi and Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) wireless connectivity must be maintained between the wearable device and a mobile phone. During long periods of inactivity, an accurate sleep clock will significantly improve battery life in wearables by enabling longer sleep intervals and fewer and shorter transmissions. Similarly, non-real time data transfer of real-time sensor activity occurring between periods of data transmission requires accurate time stamping. And the wearable's MCU reference clock must be precisely picked for the optimal operating frequency and duty cycled to optimize power. While the traditional quartz oscillators meet the power and accuracy specifications of wearable devices, they cannot easily meet the size requirements. On the other hand, unlike quartz, MEMS based oscillators are advantageous for wearable device applications because they can meet the all three main requirements -- power, accuracy, and size -- in combination. The MEMS oscillators' advantage stems from the fact that they can put into a chip-scale package (CSP), while quartz is limited to ceramic packages that are bulky. This talk will provide an overview of where timing chips are used in a typical wearable device system, how they affect the overall performance, and what can be done to make wearable devices more efficient.

Biography: Steve Pratt is responsible for the new product and strategic direction at SiTime. Steve is an analog semiconductor industry veteran with over 20 years of experience in defining new products and managing business units. Over the past three years at SiTime, he has started and built-up the mobile product line to be one of the major product line revenue generators within the company. Prior to SiTime, Steve made significant strategic marketing contributions at Maxim, Micrel, and Monolithic Power Systems (MPS). In his free time, Steve enjoys cycling, running, and tinkering with cars.


Strategies for security in the wearable ecosystem
Ray Potter
CEO
SafeLogic

Wearables play a critical role collecting, processing, and archiving increasingly personal data. Security strategies must be robust to match the importance of the information at stake, even if the device itself is scaled down. Our biggest problem? It simply isn't easy to design strong security with such constrained space requirements. Practitioners have a running start, building on successes with smartphones and tablets, but the challenge is taken one step further with today's tiny but surprisingly powerful wearable devices. This talk will cover: (1) potential vulnerabilities in wearable devices, (2) technical constraints in the leading wearables that make security challenging, (3) similarities to other mobile devices and lessons learned, (4) techniques used in mobile security that will apply to wearables, and (5) industries and verticals which will have use cases for secured wearable devices.

Biography: Ray Potter is the CEO and co-founder of SafeLogic. Previously, Ray founded Apex Assurance Group and led the Security Assurance program at Cisco Systems. He has been recognized as a thought leader in next generation security technologies, speaking at the RSA Conference, CTIA MobileCon, Super Mobility Week, (ISC)2 Congress, Wearables DevCon, and the International Cryptographic Module Conference, among others. Ray currently lives in Palo Alto and enjoys cycling and good bourbon (although not at the same time).


Integrating sensors seamlessly with clothing in mass production
Akseli Reho
CEO
Clothing+

To integrate sensors seamlessly with clothing is meaningful because then wearable devices are built into what we are already used to wearing all the time. Thus, clothing and textile accessories are a natural platform for gathering biometric sensor data from the human body. Also, the trend of sensors and other electronics shrinking in size, appearance and cost is supporting the integration trend with textiles. But, on the other hand, clothing and especially underwear is a challenging integration platform. The material volume of the product is minimal, the maintenance environment like machine washing is harsh, the design plays a big role, and the price and logistic targets are tough, etc. New technologies and interdisciplinary approaches are needed to make sensor integration with textiles come true. In this presentation, I will discuss the characteristics of embedding and integrating sensors into textiles in mass production scale, both for sports and medical applications.

Biography: Akseli Reho is the founder and CEO of the Finnish wearable sensor company Clothing+. With a M.Sc. degree in telecommunications, Mr. Reho has been an active member in the wearables community since 1998 and his work has been instrumental in bridging the gap between electronics and textiles in manufacturing. Under his direction, Clothing+ has been mass-producing millions of textile-integrated wearable sensors since 2002 and continues to make an ever greater impact on the sports and medical markets.


MEMS and sensors in wearables: market overview
Jordan Selburn
Sr. Principal Analyst
IHS

Wearable electronics have rapidly emerged as the next big wave for MEMS and sensors in consumer electronics after smartphones and tablets. We predict that close to 500 million sensors will ship in wearables by 2019 up from 66 million units in 2013. The presentation will analyze the market by wearable device and by sensor type. The market drivers for this sensor boom will be reviewed, including: (1) fitness and health monitoring, and (2) sensors for user interface applications, especially MEMS microphones for voice command. Notably, the adoption of environment monitoring sensors (such as humidity, UV, and others) results more from a technology push, by both sensor suppliers and wearable device OEMs, than from a real pull from the consumers. This talk will also assess the impact of the ecosystem on the adoption of sensors (for example, the influence of dedicated operating systems such as Google Wear and sensor hubs). Finally, the specificities of the wearable market will be reviewed, as compared to handsets, along with the opportunities and risks it bears for sensor suppliers.

Biography: Jordan Selburn leads IHS research in consumer electronics (CE), with a particular focus on CE hardware and the semiconductors that enable these platforms. Within the CE market, his research has concentrated especially on set-top boxes (STBs) and other audio/video devices. Additionally, he is a leading authority on semiconductor design including the trends and forecasts in the "system-on-a-chip" space. Previously, Selburn served as the director of marketing for Amphion Semiconductor and as a principal analyst at Gartner Group. He has also worked for LSI Logic, Cadence Design Systems, Agilent and Harris Corporation in various engineering and marketing capacities. Selburn holds a Master of Science degree from Stanford University, a Master of Business Administration from Santa Clara University, and a Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan.


Preventing the terrible wearables: designing robust wearable electronics
Cheryl Tulkoff
Senior Member of the Technical Staff
DfR Solutions

Wearable electronics offer both significant opportunities and significant challenges to the design community. To ensure reliable and safe products, designers must be aware of new device packaging constraints, environmental conditions like sweat, UV and temperature exposure, tumble and drop, bending and torque, and the inevitable water immersion. Wireless communication and battery life needs must also be considered. The news is already littered with examples of failing and marginally performing wearable electronics. This presentation is designed to help you avoid those pitfalls by understanding the wearable use environment and designing appropriately for it. Material and component selection and protection options will be discussed. Effective strategies for test plan development will also be identified. Wearable electronics test strategies must be tailored specifically for the individual product design and materials, the use environment, and reliability needs.

Biography: Cheryl Tulkoff has over 22 years of experience in electronics manufacturing focusing on failure analysis and reliability. She is passionate about applying her unique background to enable her clients to maximize and accelerate product design and development while saving time, managing resources, and improving customer satisfaction. Throughout her career, Cheryl has had extensive training experience and is a published author and a senior member of both ASQ and IEEE. She views teaching as a two-way process that enables her to impart her knowledge on to others as well as reinforce her own understanding and ability to explain complex concepts through student interaction. A passionate advocate of continued learning, Cheryl has taught electronics workshops that introduced her to numerous fascinating companies, people, and cultures.


Call for Speakers

If you’d like to participate as a speaker, please call Jessica Ingram at 360-929-0114 or send a brief email with your proposed presentation topic to jessica@microtechventures.com.

Conference scope includes topics related to medical wearables, such as:

  • Wearable device trends, competitive forces and dynamics, market drivers, emerging applications, and disruptive technologies
  • Emerging types of wearable sensors, materials, and smart fabrics
  • Business trends, market projections, M&A developments, and startup activity
  • Wearable device applications for medical diagnostics and screening
  • Flexible, stretchable, printed, and hybrid electronics
  • Connectivity, sensor fusion, body area networks, software algorithms, contextual awareness, virtual sensors, data transmission, and processing
  • Fabrication, packaging, and assembly techniques
  • Ultra-low power systems and components, energy harvesters, micro batteries and energy storage, supercapacitors, and power management solutions
  • Government policy effects, regulatory compliance, security
  • Impacts of enabling technologies such as genomics, artificial intelligence, virtual and augmented reality for medical wearables applications
  • Digital health, “quantified self” movement, and usage paid insurance
  • Technology transfer, ecosystems and hubs, company formation