Nan-Wei Gong

Last updated
Nan-Wei Gong
CES2025 NanWei Gong.jpg
Nan-Wei Gong speaking at the CES2025 "Health AI Startups: Innovating the Future of Healthcare" session
Born
Nan-Wei Gong
Education Massachusetts Institute of Technology (PhD)
OccupationEngineer
Engineering career
Employer(s)CEO of FIGUR8
Awards Robert P. Goldberg grand prize at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's $100K Entrepreneurship Competition
Website https://www.figur8tech.com

Nan-Wei Gong is an American engineer, inventor, and entrepreneur whose work focuses on wearable technology. [1] She is the founder and CEO of FIGUR8, a company focused on better technologies and hardware platforms to diagnose and treat musculoskeletal and orthopedic injuries. [2]

Contents

Education

Gong earned her master's degree in 2009 [3] and her PhD degree in 2013 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts [4] in the Responsive Environments Group in the MIT Media Lab advised by Joseph Paradiso. [5] In 2013 Gong was part of a team that won the Robert P. Goldberg $100,000 grand prize at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's $100K Entrepreneurship Competition. The team created "new sensor-level software that recognizes three-dimensional gestures on small, battery-powered, mobile devices." [6] Gong worked in MIT's Media Lab as a research assistant for seven years. [3]

Career

Gong founded Circular2, a technology consulting company in 2014. [4] Gong is a co-inventor of a device for "sensing floor for locating people and devices. A patent was issued to Microsoft for this invention in 2015. [7] Gong co-founded FIGUR8, a company that develops wearable technology that can assess the musculoskeletal system in minutes. This technology allows for better accessibility and visibility of soft-tissue recovery and treatment planning compared to MRI's and X-Ray scans. [5] [3]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Computer mouse</span> Pointing device used to control a computer

A computer mouse is a hand-held pointing device that detects two-dimensional motion relative to a surface. This motion is typically translated into the motion of the pointer on a display, which allows a smooth control of the graphical user interface of a computer.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Optical mouse</span> Type of computer mouse

An optical mouse is a computer mouse which uses a light source, typically a light-emitting diode (LED), and a light detector, such as an array of photodiodes, to detect movement relative to a surface. Variations of the optical mouse have largely replaced the older mechanical mouse design, which uses moving parts to sense motion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">MIT Sloan School of Management</span> Business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robert Metcalfe</span> American engineer (born 1946)

Robert "Bob" Melancton Metcalfe is an American engineer and entrepreneur who contributed to the development of the internet in the 1970s. He co-invented Ethernet, co-founded 3Com, and formulated Metcalfe's law, which describes the effect of a telecommunications network. Metcalfe has also made several predictions which failed to come to pass, including forecasting the demise of the internet during the 1990s.

The PenPoint OS was one of the earliest operating systems written specifically for graphical tablets and personal digital assistants. It was a product of GO Corporation. PenPoint OS ran on a number of Intel x86-powered tablet PCs including IBM's ThinkPad 700T series, NCR's 3125, 3130 and some of GRiD Systems' pen-based portables; it was later ported to the Hobbit chip in AT&T Corporation's EO Personal Communicator. PenPoint was never widely adopted.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Analog Devices</span> American semiconductor manufacturer

Analog Devices, Inc. (ADI), also known simply as Analog, is an American multinational semiconductor company specializing in data conversion, signal processing, and power management technology, headquartered in Wilmington, Massachusetts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scroll wheel</span> Component of a computer mouse used for scrolling

A scroll wheel is a wheel used for scrolling. The term usually refers to such wheels found on computer mice. It is often made of hard plastic with a rubbery surface, centred around an internal rotary encoder. It is usually located between the left and right mouse buttons and is positioned perpendicular to the mouse surface. Sometimes the wheel can be pressed left and right, which is actually just two additional macros buttons.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Wired glove</span> Input device for human–computer interaction

A wired glove is an input device for human–computer interaction worn like a glove.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Timeline of United States inventions (after 1991)</span>

A timeline of United States inventions encompasses the ingenuity and innovative advancements of the United States within a historical context, dating from the Contemporary era to the present day, which have been achieved by inventors who are either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Patent protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:

To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Multi-touch</span> Touchscreen interactions using multiple fingers

In computing, multi-touch is technology that enables a surface to recognize the presence of more than one point of contact with the surface at the same time. The origins of multitouch began at CERN, MIT, University of Toronto, Carnegie Mellon University and Bell Labs in the 1970s. CERN started using multi-touch screens as early as 1976 for the controls of the Super Proton Synchrotron. Capacitive multi-touch displays were popularized by Apple's iPhone in 2007. Multi-touch may be used to implement additional functionality, such as pinch to zoom or to activate certain subroutines attached to predefined gestures using gesture recognition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Pen computing</span> Uses a stylus and tablet/touchscreen

Pen computing refers to any computer user-interface using a pen or stylus and tablet, over input devices such as a keyboard or a mouse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Kinect</span> Motion-sensing input device for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One

Kinect is a discontinued line of motion sensing input devices produced by Microsoft and first released in 2010. The devices generally contain RGB cameras, and infrared projectors and detectors that map depth through either structured light or time of flight calculations, which can in turn be used to perform real-time gesture recognition and body skeletal detection, among other capabilities. They also contain microphones that can be used for speech recognition and voice control.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">PrimeSense</span> Former Israeli company

PrimeSense was an Israeli 3D sensing company based in Tel Aviv. PrimeSense had offices in Israel, North America, Japan, Singapore, Korea, China and Taiwan. PrimeSense was bought by Apple Inc. for $360 million on November 24, 2013.

Project Digits is a Microsoft Research Project under Microsoft's computer science laboratory at the University of Cambridge; researchers from Newcastle University and University of Crete are also involved in this project. Project is led by David Kim, a Microsoft Research PhD and also a PhD student in computer science at Newcastle University. Digits is an input device which can be mounted on the wrist of human hand and it captures and displays a complete 3D graphical representation of the user's hand on screen without using any external sensing device or hand covering material like data gloves. This project aims to make gesture-controlled interfaces completely hands free with greater mobility and accuracy. It allows user to interact with whatever hardware while moving from room to room or walking down the street without any line of sight connection with the hardware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Microsoft HoloLens</span> Mixed reality smartglasses

Microsoft HoloLens is an augmented reality (AR)/mixed reality (MR) headset developed and manufactured by Microsoft. HoloLens runs the Windows Mixed Reality platform under the Windows 10 operating system. Some of the positional tracking technology used in HoloLens can trace its lineage to the Microsoft Kinect, an accessory for Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Xbox One game consoles that was introduced in 2010.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Google ATAP</span> Skunkworks team and in-house technology incubator

Google's Advanced Technology and Projects group (ATAP) is a skunkworks team and in-house technology incubator, created by former DARPA director Regina Dugan. ATAP is similar to X, but works on projects, granting project leaders time—previously only two years—in which to move a project from concept to proven product. According to Dugan, the ideal ATAP project combines technology and science, requires a certain amount of novel research, and creates a marketable product. Historically, the ATAP team was born at Motorola Mobility and kept when Google sold Motorola Mobility to Lenovo in 2014; for this reason, ATAP ideas have tended to involve mobile hardware technology.

The machine translation of sign languages has been possible, albeit in a limited fashion, since 1977. When a research project successfully matched English letters from a keyboard to ASL manual alphabet letters which were simulated on a robotic hand. These technologies translate signed languages into written or spoken language, and written or spoken language to sign language, without the use of a human interpreter. Sign languages possess different phonological features than spoken languages, which has created obstacles for developers. Developers use computer vision and machine learning to recognize specific phonological parameters and epentheses unique to sign languages, and speech recognition and natural language processing allow interactive communication between hearing and deaf people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Roozbeh Ghaffari</span> American biomedical engineer and neuroscientist

Roozbeh Ghaffari is a biomedical engineer and neuroscientist. He is currently CEO and co-founder of Epicore Biosystems, research associate professor at Northwestern University's Biomedical Engineering Department, and Director of Translational Research in the Querrey Simpson Institute for Bioelectronics.

Elaine Chen is an academic and an engineering executive in the haptic technology field. She is named as the lead inventor on the Microsoft patent for the force feedback joystick.

References

  1. D'Ambrosio, Daniel. "MIT Engineer Develops New Way To Improve Your Body Movement". Forbes. Retrieved 2022-03-24.
  2. "About FIGUR8". FIGURE8. Retrieved 2025-01-11.
  3. 1 2 3 "MIT: Bringing precision to musculoskeletal health. - Document - Gale Power Search". go.gale.com. Retrieved 2022-03-24.
  4. 1 2 Wogrammer (2018-07-20). "Wearing the Pants: Hardware Engineer Nan-Wei Gong Defies Gender Stereotypes to Create 3D Tech". AnitaB.org x Wogrammer. Retrieved 2022-03-25.
  5. 1 2 "FIGUR8 Generates $12 Million in Series A Financing. - Document - Gale Power Search". go.gale.com. Retrieved 2022-03-24.
  6. "Gesture Is the New Touch: MIT $100K Entrepreneurship Competition Awards $100,000 Grand Prize to 3dim, Creator of the First 3-D Gesture Sensor for Mobile Devices - Document - Gale Power Search". go.gale.com. Retrieved 2022-03-24.
  7. "Microsoft Assigned Patent for Sensing Floor for Locating People and Devices - Document - Gale Power Search". go.gale.com. Retrieved 2022-03-24.