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You are here: Home / Company News / Doc Races Time and Disease to Build Assistive Tech

Doc Races Time and Disease to Build Assistive Tech

December 13, 2013 By Dan Rosenbaum

eyeronman-sliderCrain’s New York Business carries the compelling story of Dr. J.R. Rizzo, a doctor at NYU’s Langone Medical Center. Rizzo’s got a degenerative disease and he’s losing his sight.

His inventions, a sensor-equipped vest and a wheeled cane that improves on a device that hasn’t changed in almost a century, could help the visually impaired navigate the physical world: “There isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t have a fall or hit my head, and I still have five degrees of central vision,” Dr. Rizzo said. “It really hits home for me.”

The Eyeronman vest (cute name, that — you have to say it out loud) has 70 sensors of various sort that drive a variety of actuators; the CumbaCane can detect obstacles more effectively than your basic white and red stick.

Rizzo’s trying to raise $500,000 and get the CumbaCane on the market for under $100 in 18 months. The vest is maybe five years out; it requires FDA approval. The company is called Tactile Navigation Tools.

This is straight out of Hollywood. Someone get this guy a Kickstarter, will you please?

Last updated by Dan Rosenbaum on December 24, 2013.

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Filed Under: Company News, Regulatory, Trends Tagged With: assistive tech, cumbacane, eyeronman, Langone, NYU, rizzo, tactile navigation tools

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