[blindza] Fw: Tech visionary
- From: "Jacob Kruger" <jacobk@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "BlindZA" <blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 27 Sep 2007 21:23:43 +0200
Ottawa Citizen, Canada
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tech visionary
By Bert Hill
Technology executive and investor Conrad Lewis knows a thing or two about
vision problems, so he's putting his money where his eyes are, writes Bert
Hill.
Conrad Lewis has great vision. But his eyesight, and the eyesight of many
people close to him, is lousy.
So the successful Ottawa technology executive and investor is building a
company to harness new technology to deal with eyesight issues.
eSight Corp. also has plans to market the technology to a much bigger
audience: Fans at sports events. It could help a baseball spectator see a
flyball
in the shadows or strong sunlight of a stadium, or a hockey fan to plug into
play-by-play camera feeds to see closeups of a favourite player.
The product could take many forms, ranging from glasses that look much like
conventional sunglasses, to StarTrek-like headsets incorporating video
display
screens.
The company will make its first public pitch for support this week at the
Ottawa Venture and Technology Summit at the Hilton Lac Leamy. It's one of 16
budding concerns seeking investment capital.
Mr. Lewis has personally poured close to $2 million of the fortune he made
at Newbridge Networks and the old Mitel Corp. and other companies into
building
eSight.
He has assembled a high-powered team of executives to develop the company,
including Pat Beirne, a product development force behind Corel Corp., and
Dan
Mathers, ex-chief executive officer at defunct Icefyre Semiconductor with
experience at Mosaid, IBM and Celestica.
Mr. Lewis knows a lot about eye problems. His wife, Susan, is severely
near-sighted and has had two retina detachments and other serious issues.
His sisters,
Anne and Julia, have a genetic condition called Stargardt's disease that has
rendered them legally blind.
And Mr. Lewis is blind in his right eye as a result of a blood clot from an
accident that injured the optical nerve.
Dealing with all this and investing in treatments has made him an expert on
vision problems.
He discovered that a big proportion of an aging population has eyesight
issues that, in many cases,, cannot be treated with surgery or glasses.
An estimated three to four per cent of the U.S. population has serious
visual impairments that can't be dealt with surgically. The percentage is
likely
to grow as the baby boom generation ages and an increase in obesity leads to
more diabetes -- a threat to eyesight.
The eyes and the spine are two parts of the body that cannot regenerate.
Many people would rather die than lose their eyesight, Mr. Lewis says.
The market opportunity presented by this group is obvious: Many are
prosperous baby boomers who will fight to the last cent to retain their
deteriorating
eyesight.
But Mr. Lewis also knows a lot about computer processing, digital imaging
and advanced display technology.
His idea is to use this technology to allow individuals losing eye sight to
maximize the abilities they still have. Since the onset of blindness can
take
many forms, and even the legally blind have some remaining eyesight, the
technology would be adapted to each case.
With the cellphone and iPod gaining more power everyday, he believes such
devices will be the means to deliver video and special image enhancements to
people with fading eyesight.
Headset technology that lets youths on Tokyo subways watch videos on their
iPods and MP3 players could soon be helping the visually impaired.
"The technology isn't quite good enough yet, but the day is rapidly
approaching. We want to ride the mass market."
eSight has developed a prototype that integrates the early technology and is
showing it to investors. Mr. Lewis said a European research foundation has
tentatively promised an $11-million investment.
About 18 months ago he put his ideas in front to a group of experts at the
Eye Institute at the Ottawa Hospital.
"They were there because I was identified as a high-net-worth individual by
the Ottawa Hospital Foundation," he says with a laugh. "There was a lot of
arm-twisting."
"At first it wasn't the most receptive audience, but when I put forward my
ideas I got my validation: 'Oh God, why didn't I think of this first.' "
Mr. Lewis also got validation recently from some Silicon Valley investors.
They were at Oakland Stadium, close to the offices of Newbury Ventures, a
$250-million venture capital firm with which he has been associated.
He currently spends most of his time as founder and principal of Eagle One
Ventures, an early-stage seed investor.
Mr. Lewis pitched his ideas for reaching an affluent audience that wants to
enhance visual experience at ballgames or concerts.
The ideas started flying: Providing the glasses as a promotion for a couple
of innings and letting fans rent them for the rest of the game. Letting
stadiums
and arenas get the money that cellphone companies now get from fans watching
replays on their phones.
Mr. Lewis said the basic hardware could sell for about $2,000 and the
company would make much more money selling future software upgrades as the
technology
matures.
He said the California executives could see the opportunity in catering to a
market that spends $20 billion annually on sporting events and $8 billion
on vision correction.
"They were excited. They wanted a piece of it," he said.
A total of 16 startups will make presentations to potential investors at the
technology summit sessions, which start today.
They include: Artenga Inc., Chinook Mobile Heating & Deicing Corp., 'Cyrium
Technologies Inc., Diablo Technologies Inc., Embotics Corp., Energate Inc.,
eSight, Gridpoint Systems, Group IV Semiconductor Inc., IMC Security Inc.,
IPeak Networks, Kleer, MYDYO, neuroLanguage Corp., Protecode Inc. and Vo-
IPshield Systems Inc.
http://www.canada.com/ottawacitizen/news/business/story.html?id=c43847c9-d048-44c4-b121-b81c0a8cdbd2
BlindNews Mailing List
Subscribe:
BlindNews-Request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with "subscribe" as subject
Unsubscribe:
BlindNews-Request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with "unsubscribe" as subject
Moderator:
BlindNews-Moderators@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Archive:
http://GeoffAndWen.com/blind
RSS:
http://GeoffAndWen.com/BlindNewsRSS.asp
More information about RSS feeds will be published shortly.
----------
To send a message to the list, send any message to blindza@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
----------
To unsubscribe from this list, send a message to blindza-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
with 'unsubscribe' in the subject line
---
The 'homepage' for this list is at http://www.blindza.co.za
Other related posts:
- » [blindza] Fw: Tech visionary
